I observed that as he stepped out he gave a most searching
glance to right and left, and at every subsequent street
corner he took the utmost pains to assure that he was not
followed. Our route was certainly a singular one.
Holmes's knowledge of the byways of London was
extraordinary, and on this occasion he passed rapidly, and
with an assured step, through a network of mews and stables
the very existence of which I had never known. We emerged
at last into a small road, lined with old, gloomy houses,
which led us into Manchester Street, and so to Blandford
Street. Here he turned swiftly down a narrow passage,
passed through a wooden gate into a deserted yard, and then
opened with a key the back door of a house. We entered
together and he closed it behind us.
The place was pitch-dark, but it was evident to me that it
was an empty house. Our feet creaked and crackled over the
bare planking, and my outstretched hand touched a wall from
which the paper was hanging in ribbons. Holmes's cold,
thin fingers closed round my wrist and led me forwards down
a long hall, until I dimly saw the murky fanlight over the
door. Here Holmes turned suddenly to the right, and we
found ourselves in a large, square, empty room, heavily
shadowed in the corners, but faintly lit in the centre from
the lights of the street beyond. There was no lamp near
and the window was thick with dust, so that we could only
just discern each other's figures within. My companion put
his hand upon my shoulder and his lips close to my ear.
"Do you know where we are?" he whispered.
"Surely that is Baker Street," I answered, staring through
the dim window.
"Exactly. We are in Camden House, which stands opposite to
our own old quarters."
"But why are we here?"
"Because it commands so excellent a view of that
picturesque pile. Might I trouble you, my dear Watson, to
draw a little nearer to the window, taking every precaution
not to show yourself, and then to look up at our old rooms
-- the starting-point of so many of our little adventures?
{1} We will see if my three years of absence have entirely
taken away my power to surprise you."
I crept forward and looked across at the familiar window.
As my eyes fell upon it I gave a gasp and a cry of
amazement. The blind was down and a strong light was
burning in the room. The shadow of a man who was seated in
a chair within was thrown in hard, black outline upon the
luminous screen of the window. There was no mistaking the
poise of the head, the squareness of the shoulders, the
sharpness of the features. The face was turned half-round,
and the effect was that of one of those black silhouettes
which our grandparents loved to frame. It was a perfect
reproduction of Holmes. So amazed was I that I threw out
my hand to make sure that the man himself was standing
beside me. He was quivering with silent laughter.
"Well?" said he.
"Good heavens!" I cried. "It is marvellous."
"I trust that age doth not wither nor custom stale my
infinite variety,'" said he, and I recognised in his voice
the joy and pride which the artist takes in his own creation.
"It really is rather like me, is it not?"
"I should be prepared to swear that it was you."
"The credit of the execution is due to Monsieur Oscar
Meunier, of Grenoble, who spent some days in doing the
moulding. It is a bust in wax. The rest I arranged myself
during my visit to Baker Street this afternoon."
"But why?"
"Because, my dear Watson, I had the strongest possible
reason for wishing certain people to think that I was there
when I was really elsewhere."
"And you thought the rooms were watched?"
"I _knew_ that they were watched."
"By whom?"
"By my old enemies, Watson. By the charming society whose
leader lies in the Reichenbach Fall. You must remember
that they knew, and only they knew, that I was still alive.
Sooner or later they believed that I should come back to my
rooms. They watched them continuously, and this morning
they saw me arrive."
"How do you know?"
"Because I recognised their sentinel when I glanced out of
my window. He is a harmless enough fellow, Parker by name,
a garroter by trade, and a remarkable performer upon the
Jew's harp. I cared nothing for him. But I cared a great
deal for the much more formidable person who was behind
him, the bosom friend of Moriarty, the man who dropped the
rocks over the cliff, the most cunning and dangerous
criminal in London. That is the man who is after me to-night,
Watson, and that is the man who is quite unaware that we are
after _him_."
My friend's plans were gradually revealing themselves.
From this convenient retreat the watchers were being
watched and the trackers tracked. That angular shadow up
yonder was the bait and we were the hunters. In silence we
stood together in the darkness and watched the hurrying
figures who passed and repassed in front of us. Holmes was
silent and motionless; but I could tell that he was keenly
alert, and that his eyes were fixed intently upon the
stream of passers-by. It was a bleak and boisterous night,
and the wind whistled shrilly down the long street. Many
people were moving to and fro, most of them muffled in
their coats and cravats. Once or twice it seemed to me
that I had seen the same figure before, and I especially
noticed two men who appeared to be sheltering themselves
from the wind in the doorway of a house some distance up
the street. I tried to draw my companion's attention to
them, but he gave a little ejaculation of impatience and
continued to stare into the street. More than once he
fidgeted with his feet and tapped rapidly with his fingers
upon the wall. It was evident to me that he was becoming
uneasy and that his plans were not working out altogether
as he had hoped. At last, as midnight approached and the
street gradually cleared, he paced up and down the room in
uncontrollable agitation. I was about to make some remark
to him when I raised my eyes to the lighted window and
again experienced almost as great a surprise as before.
I clutched Holmes's arm and pointed upwards.
"The shadow has moved!" I cried.
It was, indeed, no longer the profile, but the back, which
was turned towards us.
Three years had certainly not smoothed the asperities of
his temper or his impatience with a less active
intelligence than his own.
"Of course it has moved," said he. "Am I such a farcical
bungler, Watson, that I should erect an obvious dummy and
expect that some of the sharpest men in Europe would be
deceived by it? We have been in this room two hours,
and
Mrs. Hudson has made some change in that figure eight
times, or once in every quarter of an hour. She works it
from the front so that her shadow may never be seen. Ah!"
He drew in his breath with a shrill, excited intake.
In the dim light I saw his head thrown forward, his whole
attitude rigid with attention. Outside, the street was
absolutely deserted. Those two men might still be
crouching in the doorway, but I could no longer see them.
All was still and dark, save only that brilliant yellow
screen in front of us with the black figure outlined upon
its centre. Again in the utter silence I heard that thin,
sibilant note which spoke of intense suppressed excitement.
An instant later he pulled me back into the blackest corner
of the room, and I felt his warning hand upon my lips. The
fingers which clutched me were quivering. Never had I
known my friend more moved, and yet the dark street still
stretched lonely and motionless before us.
But suddenly I was aware of that which his keener senses
had already distinguished. A low, stealthy sound came to
my ears, not from the direction of Baker Street, but from
the back of the very house in which we lay concealed. A
door opened and shut. An instant later steps crept down
the passage -- steps which were meant to be silent, but
which reverberated harshly through the empty house. Holmes
crouched back against the wall and I did the same, my hand
closing upon the handle of my revolver. Peering through
the gloom, I saw the vague outline of a man, a shade
blacker than the blackness of the open door. He stood for
an instant, and then he crept forward, crouching, menacing,
into the room. He was within three yards of us, this
sinister figure, and I had braced myself to meet his
spring, before I realized that he had no idea of our
presence. He passed close beside us, stole over to the
window, and very softly and noiselessly raised it for half
a foot. As he sank to the level of this opening the light
of the street, no longer dimmed by the dusty glass, fell
full upon his face. The man seemed to be beside himself
with excitement. His two eyes shone like stars and his
features were working convulsively. He was an elderly man,
with a thin, projecting nose, a high, bald forehead, and a
huge grizzled moustache. An opera-hat was pushed to the
back of his head, and an evening dress shirt-front gleamed
out through his open overcoat. His face was gaunt and
swarthy, scored with deep, savage lines. In his hand he
carried what appeared to be a stick, but as he laid it down
upon the floor it gave a metallic clang. Then from the
pocket of his overcoat he drew a bulky object, and he
busied himself in some task which ended with a loud, sharp
click, as if a spring or bolt had fallen into its place.
Still kneeling upon the floor he bent forward and threw all
his weight and strength upon some lever, with the result
that there came a long, whirling, grinding noise, ending
once more in a powerful click. He straightened himself
then, and I saw that what he held in his hand was a sort of
gun, with a curiously misshapen butt. He opened it at the
breech, put something in, and snapped the breech-block.
Then, crouching down, he rested the end of the barrel upon
the ledge of the open window, and I saw his long moustache
droop over the stock and his eye gleam as it peered along
the sights. I heard a little sigh of satisfaction as he
cuddled the butt into his shoulder, and saw that amazing
target, the black man on the yellow ground, standing clear
at the end of his fore sight. For an instant he was rigid
and motionless. Then his finger tightened on the trigger.
There was a strange, loud whiz and a long, silvery tinkle
of broken glass. At that instant Holmes sprang like a
tiger on to the marksman's back and hurled him flat upon
his face. He was up again in a moment, and with convulsive
strength he seized Holmes by the throat; but I struck him
on the head with the butt of my revolver and he dropped
again upon the floor. I fell upon him, and as I held him
my comrade blew a shrill call upon a whistle. There was
the clatter of running feet upon the pavement, and two
policemen in uniform, with one plain-clothes detective,
rushed through the front entrance and into the room.
"That you, Lestrade?" said Holmes.
"Yes, Mr. Holmes. I took the job myself. It's good to see
you back in London, sir."
"I think you want a little unofficial help. Three
undetected murders in one year won't do, Lestrade. But you
handled the Molesey Mystery with less than your usual --
that's to say, you handled it fairly well."
We had all risen to our feet, our prisoner breathing hard,
with a stalwart constable on each side of him. Already a
few loiterers had begun to collect in the street. Holmes
stepped up to the window, closed it, and dropped the
blinds. Lestrade had produced two candles and the
policemen had uncovered their lanterns. I was able at last
to have a good look at our prisoner.
It was a tremendously virile and yet sinister face which
was turned towards us. With the brow of a philosopher
above and the jaw of a sensualist below, the man must have
started with great capacities for good or for evil. But
one could not look upon his cruel blue eyes, with their
drooping, cynical lids, or upon the fierce, aggressive nose
and the threatening, deep-lined brow, without reading
Nature's plainest danger-signals. He took no heed of any
of us, but his eyes were fixed upon Holmes's face with an
expression in which hatred and amazement were equally
blended. "You fiend!" he kept on muttering. "You clever,
clever fiend!"
"Ah, Colonel!" said Holmes, arranging his rumpled collar;
"'journeys end in lovers' meetings,' as the old play says.
I don't think I have had the pleasure of seeing you since
you favoured me with those attentions as I lay on the ledge
above the Reichenbach Fall."
The Colonel still stared at my friend like a man in a
trance. "You cunning, cunning fiend!" was all that he
could say.
"I have not introduced you yet," said Holmes. "This,
gentlemen, is Colonel Sebastian Moran, once of Her
Majesty's Indian Army, and the best heavy game shot that
our Eastern Empire has ever produced. I believe I am
correct, Colonel, in saying that your bag of tigers still
remains unrivalled?"
The fierce old man said nothing, but still glared at my
companion; with his savage eyes and bristling moustache he
was wonderfully like a tiger himself.
"I wonder that my very simple stratagem could deceive so
old a shikari," said Holmes. "It must be very familiar to
y
ou. Have you not tethered a young kid under a tree, lain
above it with your rifle, and waited for the bait to bring
up your tiger? This empty house is my tree and you are my
tiger. You have possibly had other guns in reserve in case
there should be several tigers, or in the unlikely
supposition of your own aim failing you. These," he
pointed around, "are my other guns. The parallel is
exact."
Colonel Moran sprang forward, with a snarl of rage, but the
constables dragged him back. The fury upon his face was
terrible to look at.
"I confess that you had one small surprise for me," said
Holmes. "I did not anticipate that you would yourself make
use of this empty house and this convenient front window.
I had imagined you as operating from the street, where
my friend Lestrade and his merry men were awaiting you.
With that exception all has gone as I expected."
Colonel Moran turned to the official detective.
"You may or may not have just cause for arresting me," said
he, "but at least there can be no reason why I should
submit to the gibes of this person. If I am in the hands
of the law let things be done in a legal way."
"Well, that's reasonable enough," said Lestrade. "Nothing
further you have to say, Mr. Holmes, before we go?"
Holmes had picked up the powerful air-gun from the floor
and was examining its mechanism.
"An admirable and unique weapon," said he, "noiseless and
of tremendous power. I knew Von Herder, the blind German
mechanic, who constructed it to the order of the late
Professor Moriarty. For years I have been aware of its
existence, though I have never before had an opportunity
of handling it. I commend it very specially to your
attention, Lestrade, and also the bullets which fit it."
"You can trust us to look after that, Mr. Holmes," said
Lestrade, as the whole party moved towards the door.
"Anything further to say?"
"Only to ask what charge you intend to prefer?"
"What charge, sir? Why, of course, the attempted murder of
Mr. Sherlock Holmes."
"Not so, Lestrade. I do not propose to appear in the
matter at all. To you, and to you only, belongs the credit
of the remarkable arrest which you have effected. Yes,
Lestrade, I congratulate you! With your usual happy
mixture of cunning and audacity you have got him."
"Got him! Got whom, Mr. Holmes?"
"The man that the whole force has been seeking in vain --
Colonel Sebastian Moran, who shot the Honourable Ronald
Adair with an expanding bullet from an air-gun through the
open window of the second-floor front of No. 427, Park
Lane, upon the 30th of last month. That's the charge,
Lestrade. And now, Watson, if you can endure the draught
from a broken window, I think that half an hour in my study
over a cigar may afford you some profitable amusement."
Our old chambers had been left unchanged through the
supervision of Mycroft Holmes and the immediate care of
Mrs. Hudson. As I entered I saw, it is true, an unwonted
tidiness, but the old landmarks were all in their place.
There were the chemical corner and the acid-stained,
deal-topped table. There upon a shelf was the row of
formidable scrap-books and books of reference which many of
our fellow-citizens would have been so glad to burn. The
diagrams, the violin-case, and the pipe-rack -- even the
Persian slipper which contained the tobacco -- all met my
eyes as I glanced round me. There were two occupants of
the room -- one Mrs. Hudson, who beamed upon us both as we
entered; the other the strange dummy which had played so
important a part in the evening's adventures. It was a
wax-coloured model of my friend, so admirably done that
it was a perfect facsimile. It stood on a small pedestal
table with an old dressing-gown of Holmes's so draped round
it that the illusion from the street was absolutely perfect.
"I hope you preserved all precautions, Mrs. Hudson?" said
Holmes.
"I went to it on my knees, sir, just as you told me."
"Excellent. You carried the thing out very well. Did you