produced results which had led to so complete a command
over our difficulties.
"What did you do then, sir?" asked the inspector.
"I had every reason to suppose that this Abe Slaney was an
American, since Abe is an American contraction, and since a
letter from America had been the starting-point of all the
trouble. I had also every cause to think that there was
some criminal secret in the matter. The lady's allusions
to her past and her refusal to take her husband into her
confidence both pointed in that direction. I therefore
cabled to my friend, Wilson Hargreave, of the New York
Police Bureau, who has more than once made use of my
knowledge of London crime. I asked him whether the name of
Abe Slaney was known to him. Here is his reply: 'The most
dangerous crook in Chicago.' On the very evening upon
which I had his answer Hilton Cubitt sent me the last
message from Slaney. Working with known letters it took
this form:--
ELSIE .RE.ARE TO MEET THY GO.
The addition of a P and a D completed a message which
showed me that the rascal was proceeding from persuasion to
threats, and my knowledge of the crooks of Chicago prepared
me to find that he might very rapidly put his words into
action. I at once came to Norfolk with my friend and
colleague, Dr. Watson, but, unhappily, only in time to find
that the worst had already occurred."
"It is a privilege to be associated with you in the
handling of a case," said the inspector, warmly. "You will
excuse me, however, if I speak frankly to you. You are
only answerable to yourself, but I have to answer to my
superiors. If this Abe Slaney, living at Elrige's, is
indeed the murderer, and if he has made his escape while I
am seated here, I should certainly get into serious
trouble."
"You need not be uneasy. He will not try to escape."
"How do you know?"
"To fly would be a confession of guilt."
"Then let us go to arrest him."
"I expect him here every instant."
"But why should he come?"
"Because I have written and asked him."
"But this is incredible, Mr. Holmes! Why should he come
because you have asked him? Would not such a request
rather rouse his suspicions and cause him to fly?"
"I think I have known how to frame the letter," said
Sherlock Holmes. "In fact, if I am not very much mistaken,
here is the gentleman himself coming up the drive."
A man was striding up the path which led to the door. He
was a tall, handsome, swarthy fellow, clad in a suit of
grey flannel, with a Panama hat, a bristling black beard,
and a great, aggressive hooked nose, and flourishing a cane
as he walked. He swaggered up the path as if the place
belonged to him, and we heard his loud, confident peal at
the bell.
"I think, gentlemen," said Holmes, quietly, "that we had
best take up our position behind the door. Every
precaution is necessary when dealing with such a fellow.
You will need your handcuffs, inspector. You can leave the
talking to me."
We waited in silence for a minute -- one of those minutes
which one can never forget. Then the door opened and the
man stepped in. In an instant Holmes clapped a pistol to
his head and Martin slipped the handcuffs over his wrists.
It was all done so swiftly and deftly that the fellow was
helpless before he knew that he was attacked. He glared
from one to the other of us with a pair of blazing black
eyes. Then he burst into a bitter laugh.
"Well, gentlemen, you have the drop on me this time. I
seem to have knocked up against something hard. But I came
here in answer to a letter from Mrs. Hilton Cubitt. Don't
tell me that she is in this? Don't tell me that she helped
to set a trap for me?"
"Mrs. Hilton Cubitt was seriously injured and is at death's
door."
The man gave a hoarse cry of grief which rang through the
house.
"You're crazy!" he cried, fiercely. "It was he that was
hurt, not she. Who would have hurt little Elsie? I may
have threatened her, God forgive me, but I would not have
touched a hair of her pretty head. Take it back -- you!
Say that she is not hurt!"
"She was found badly wounded by the side of her dead
husband."
He sank with a deep groan on to the settee and buried his
face in his manacled hands. For five minutes he was
silent. Then he raised his face once more, and spoke with
the cold composure of despair.
"I have nothing to hide from you, gentlemen," said he. "If
I shot the man he had his shot at me, and there's no murder
in that. But if you think I could have hurt that woman,
then you don't know either me or her. I tell you there was
never a man in this world loved a woman more than I loved
her. I had a right to her. She was pledged to me years
ago. Who was this Englishman that he should come between
us? I tell you that I had the first right to her, and that
I was only claiming my own."
"She broke away from your influence when she found the man
that you are," said Holmes, sternly. "She fled from
America to avoid you, and she married an honourable
gentleman in England. You dogged her and followed her and
made her life a misery to her in order to induce her to
abandon the husband whom she loved and respected in order
to fly with you, whom she feared and hated. You have ended
by bringing about the death of a noble man and driving his
wife to suicide. That is your record in this business, Mr.
Abe Slaney, and you will answer for it to the law."
"If Elsie dies I care nothing what becomes of me," said the
American. He opened one of his hands and looked at a note
crumpled up in his palm. "See here, mister," he cried,
with a gleam of suspicion in his eyes, "you're not trying
to scare me over this, are you? If the lady is hurt as bad
as you say, who was it that wrote this note?" He tossed it
forwards on to the table.
"I wrote it to bring you here."
"You wrote it? There was no one on earth outside the Joint
who knew the secret of the dancing men. How came you to
write it?"
"What one man can invent another can discover," said
Holmes. "There is a cab coming to convey you to Norwich,
Mr. Slaney. But, meanwhile, you have time to make some
small reparation for the injury you have wrought. Are you
aware that Mrs. Hilton Cubitt has herself lain under grave
suspicion of the murder of her husband, and that it was
only my presence here and the knowledge which I happened to
possess which has saved her from the accusation? The least
that you owe her is to make it clear to the whole world
that she was in no way, directly or indirectly, responsible
for his tragic e
nd."
"I ask nothing better," said the American. "I guess the
very best case I can make for myself is the absolute naked
truth."
"It is my duty to warn you that it will be used against
you," cried the inspector, with the magnificent fair-play
of the British criminal law.
Slaney shrugged his shoulders.
"I'll chance that," said he. "First of all, I want you
gentlemen to understand that I have known this lady since
she was a child. There were seven of us in a gang in
Chicago, and Elsie's father was the boss of the Joint. He
was a clever man, was old Patrick. It was he who invented
that writing, which would pass as a child's scrawl unless
you just happened to have the key to it. Well, Elsie
learned some of our ways; but she couldn't stand the
business, and she had a bit of honest money of her own, so
she gave us all the slip and got away to London. She had
been engaged to me, and she would have married me, I
believe, if I had taken over another profession; but she
would have nothing to do with anything on the cross. It
was only after her marriage to this Englishman that I was
able to find out where she was. I wrote to her, but got no
answer. After that I came over, and, as letters were no
use, I put my messages where she could read them.
"Well, I have been here a month now. I lived in that farm,
where I had a room down below, and could get in and out
every night, and no one the wiser. I tried all I could to
coax Elsie away. I knew that she read the messages, for
once she wrote an answer under one of them. Then my temper
got the better of me, and I began to threaten her. She
sent me a letter then, imploring me to go away and saying
that it would break her heart if any scandal should come
upon her husband. She said that she would come down when
her husband was asleep at three in the morning, and speak
with me through the end window, if I would go away
afterwards and leave her in peace. She came down and
brought money with her, trying to bribe me to go. This
made me mad, and I caught her arm and tried to pull her
through the window. At that moment in rushed the husband
with his revolver in his hand. Elsie had sunk down upon
the floor, and we were face to face. I was heeled also,
and I held up my gun to scare him off and let me get away.
He fired and missed me. I pulled off almost at the same
instant, and down he dropped. I made away across the
garden, and as I went I heard the window shut behind me.
That's God's truth, gentlemen, every word of it, and I
heard no more about it until that lad came riding up with a
note which made me walk in here, like a jay, and give
myself into your hands."
A cab had driven up whilst the American had been talking.
Two uniformed policemen sat inside. Inspector Martin rose
and touched his prisoner on the shoulder.
"It is time for us to go."
"Can I see her first?"
"No, she is not conscious. Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I only
hope that if ever again I have an important case I shall
have the good fortune to have you by my side."
We stood at the window and watched the cab drive away. As
I turned back my eye caught the pellet of paper which the
prisoner had tossed upon the table. It was the note with
which Holmes had decoyed him.
"See if you can read it, Watson," said he, with a smile.
It contained no word, but this little line of dancing men:--
{GRAPHIC}
"If you use the code which I have explained," said Holmes,
"you will find that it simply means 'Come here at once.' I
was convinced that it was an invitation which he would not
refuse, since he could never imagine that it could come
from anyone but the lady. And so, my dear Watson, we have
ended by turning the dancing men to good when they have so
often been the agents of evil, and I think that I have
fulfilled my promise of giving you something unusual for
your note-book. Three-forty is our train, and I fancy we
should be back in Baker Street for dinner.
Only one word of epilogue. The American, Abe Slaney, was
condemned to death at the winter assizes at Norwich; but
his penalty was changed to penal servitude in consideration
of mitigating circumstances, and the certainty that Hilton
Cubitt had fired the first shot. Of Mrs. Hilton Cubitt I
only know that I have heard she recovered entirely, and
that she still remains a widow, devoting her whole life to
the care of the poor and to the administration of her
husband's estate.
{--------------------------------------------------------}
{----------------------- End of Text --------------------}
{--------------------------------------------------------}
{------------------ Textual Notes -----------------------}
{Dancing Men graphics are indicated by the term {GRAPHIC}}
{---------------- End Textual Notes ---------------------}
{--------------------------------------------------------}
{SOLI, Rev 4, 1/17/96 rms, 4th proofing}
{The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist, Arthur Conan Doyle}
{Source: The Strand Magazine, 27 (Jan. 1904)}
{Etext prepared by Roger Squires
[email protected]}
{Braces({}) in the text indicate textual end-notes}
{Underscores (_) in the text indicate italics}
IV. -- The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist.
FROM the years 1894 to 1901 inclusive Mr. Sherlock Holmes
was a very busy man. It is safe to say that there was no
public case of any difficulty in which he was not consulted
during those eight years, and there were hundreds of
private cases, some of them of the most intricate and
extraordinary character, in which he played a prominent
part. Many startling successes and a few unavoidable
failures were the outcome of this long period of continuous
work. As I have preserved very full notes of all these
cases, and was myself personally engaged in many of them,
it may be imagined that it is no easy task to know which I
should select to lay before the public. I shall, however,
preserve my former rule, and give the preference to those
cases which derive their interest not so much from the
brutality of the crime as from the ingenuity and dramatic
quality of the solution. For this reason I will now lay
before the reader the facts connected with Miss Violet
Smith, the solitary cyclist of Charlington, and the curious
sequel of our investigation, which culminated in unexpected
tragedy. It is true that the circumstances did not admit
of any striking illustration of those powers for which my
friend was famous, but there were some points about the
case which made it stand out in those long records of crime
from which I gather the material for these little
narratives.
On refer
ring to my note-book for the year 1895 I find that
it was upon Saturday, the 23rd of April, that we first
heard of Miss Violet Smith. Her visit was, I remember,
extremely unwelcome to Holmes, for he was immersed at the
moment in a very abstruse and complicated problem
concerning the peculiar persecution to which John Vincent
Harden, the well-known tobacco millionaire, had been
subjected. My friend, who loved above all things precision
and concentration of thought, resented anything which
distracted his attention from the matter in hand. And yet
without a harshness which was foreign to his nature it was
impossible to refuse to listen to the story of the young
and beautiful woman, tall, graceful, and queenly, who
presented herself at Baker Street late in the evening and
implored his assistance and advice. It was vain to urge
that his time was already fully occupied, for the young
lady had come with the determination to tell her story, and
it was evident that nothing short of force could get her
out of the room until she had done so. With a resigned air
and a somewhat weary smile, Holmes begged the beautiful
intruder to take a seat and to inform us what it was that
was troubling her.
"At least it cannot be your health," said he, as his keen
eyes darted over her; "so ardent a bicyclist must be full
of energy."
She glanced down in surprise at her own feet, and I
observed the slight roughening of the side of the sole
caused by the friction of the edge of the pedal.
"Yes, I bicycle a good deal, Mr. Holmes, and that has
something to do with my visit to you to-day."
My friend took the lady's ungloved hand and examined it
with as close an attention and as little sentiment as a
scientist would show to a specimen.
"You will excuse me, I am sure. It is my business," said
he, as he dropped it. "I nearly fell into the error of
supposing that you were typewriting. Of course, it is
obvious that it is music. You observe the spatulate
finger-end, Watson, which is common to both professions?
There is a spirituality about the face, however" -- he
gently turned it towards the light -- "which the typewriter
does not generate. This lady is a musician."
"Yes, Mr. Holmes, I teach music."
"In the country, I presume, from your complexion."
"Yes, sir; near Farnham, on the borders of Surrey."
"A beautiful neighbourhood and full of the most interesting
associations. You remember, Watson, that it was near there
that we took Archie Stamford, the forger. Now, Miss Violet,
what has happened to you near Farnham, on the borders of Surrey?"
The young lady, with great clearness and composure, made
the following curious statement:--
"My father is dead, Mr. Holmes. He was James Smith,
who conducted the orchestra at the old Imperial Theatre.
My mother and I were left without a relation in the world
except one uncle, Ralph Smith, who went to Africa
twenty-five years ago, and we have never had a word from
him since. When father died we were left very poor, but
one day we were told that there was an advertisement in the
_Times_ inquiring for our whereabouts. You can imagine how
excited we were, for we thought that someone had left us a
fortune. We went at once to the lawyer whose name was
given in the paper. There we met two gentlemen, Mr.
Carruthers and Mr. Woodley, who were home on a visit from
South Africa. They said that my uncle was a friend of
theirs, that he died some months before in great poverty in
Johannesburg, and that he had asked them with his last
breath to hunt up his relations and see that they were in
no want. It seemed strange to us that Uncle Ralph, who
took no notice of us when he was alive, should be so
careful to look after us when he was dead; but Mr.
Carruthers explained that the reason was that my uncle had
just heard of the death of his brother, and so felt
responsible for our fate."
"Excuse me," said Holmes; "when was this interview?"