The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

fashion as by hanging him?"

  "That is what we have to find out."

  "How could they get in?"

  "Through the front door."

  "It was barred in the morning."

  "Then it was barred after them."

  "How do you know?"

  "I saw their traces. Excuse me a moment, and I may be

  able to give you some further information about it."

  He went over to the door, and turning the lock he

  examined it in his methodical way. Then he took out

  the key, which was on the inside, and inspected that

  also. The bed, the carpet, the chairs the

  mantelpiece, the dead body, and the rope were each in

  turn examined, until at last he professed himself

  satisfied, and with my aid and that of the inspector

  cut down the wretched object and laid it reverently

  under a sheet.

  "How about this rope?" he asked.

  "It is cut off this," said Dr. Trevelyan, drawing a

  large coil from under the bed. "He was morbidly

  nervous of fire, and always kept this beside him, so

  that he might escape by the window in case the stairs

  were burning."

  "That must have saved them trouble," said Holmes,

  thoughtfully. "Yes, the actual facts are very plain,

  and I shall be surprised if by the afternoon I cannot

  give you the reasons for them as well. I will take

  this photograph of Blessington, which I see upon the

  mantelpiece, as it may help me in my inquiries."

  "But you have told us nothing!" cried the doctor.

  "Oh, there can be no doubt as to the sequence of

  events," said Holmes. "There were three of them in

  it: the young man, the old man, and a third, to whose

  identity I have no clue. The first two, I need hardly

  remark, are the same who masqueraded as the Russian

  count and his son, so we can give a very full

  description of them. They were admitted by a

  confederate inside the house. If I might offer you a

  word of advice, Inspector, it would be to arrest the

  page, who, as I understand, has only recently come

  into your service, Doctor."

  "The young imp cannot be found," said Dr. Trevelyan;

  "the maid and the cook have just been searching for

  him."

  Holmes shrugged his shoulders.

  "He has played a not unimportant part in this drama,"

  said he. "The three men having ascended the stairs,

  which they did on tiptoe, the elder man first, the

  younger man second, and the unknown man in the rear--"

  "My dear Holmes!" I ejaculated.

  "Oh, there could be no question as to the

  superimposing of the footmarks. I had the advantage

  of learning which was which last night. They

  ascended, then, to Mr. Blessington's room, the door of

  which they found to be locked. With the help of a

  wire, however, they forced round the key. Even

  without the lens you will perceive, by the scratches

  on this ward, where the pressure was applied.

  "On entering the room their first proceeding must have

  been to gag Mr. Blessington. He may have been asleep,

  or he may have been so paralyzed with terror as to

  have been unable to cry out. These walls are thick,

  and it is conceivable that his shriek, if he had time

  to utter one, was unheard.

  "Having secured him, it is evident to me that a

  consultation of some sort was held. Probably it was

  something in the nature of a judicial proceeding. It

  must have lasted for some time, for it was then that

  these cigars were smoke. The older man sat in that

  wicker chair; it was he who used the cigar-holder.

  The younger man sat over yonder; he knocked his ash

  off against the chest of drawers. The third fellow

  paced up and down. Blessington, I think, sat upright

  in the bed, but of that I cannot be absolutely

  certain.

  "Well, it ended by their taking Blessington and

  hanging him. The matter was so prearranged that it is

  my belief that they brought with them some sort of

  block or pulley which might serve as a gallows. That

  screw-driver and those screws were, as I conceive, for

  fixing it up. Seeing the hook, however they naturally

  saved themselves the trouble. Having finished their

  work they made off, and the door was barred behind

  them by their confederate."

  We had all listened with the deepest interest to this

  sketch of the night's doings, which Holmes had deduced

  from signs so subtle and minute that, even when he had

  pointed them out to us, we could scarcely follow him

  in his reasoning. The inspector hurried away on the

  instant to make inquiries about the page, while Holmes

  and I returned to Baker Street for breakfast.

  "I'll be back by three," said he, when we had finished

  our meal. "Both the inspector and the doctor will

  meet me here at that hour, and I hope by that time to

  have cleared up any little obscurity which the case

  may still present."

  Our visitors arrived at the appointed time, but it was

  a quarter to four before my friend put in an

  appearance. From his expression as he entered,

  however, I could see that all had gone well with him.

  "Any news, Inspector?"

  "We have got the boy, sir."

  "Excellent, and I have got the men."

  "You have got them!" we cried, all three.

  "Well, at least I have got their identity. This

  so-called Blessington is, as I expected, well known at

  headquarters, and so are his assailants. Their names

  are Biddle, Hayward, and Moffat."

  "The Worthingdon bank gang," cried the inspector.

  "Precisely," said Holmes.

  "Then Blessington must have been Sutton."

  "Exactly," said Holmes.

  "Why, that makes it as clear as crystal," said the

  inspector.

  But Trevelyan and I looked at each other in

  bewilderment.

  "You must surely remember the great Worthingdon bank

  business," said Holmes. "Five men were in it--these

  four and a fifth called Cartwright. Tobin, the

  care-taker, was murdered, and the thieves got away

  with seven thousand pounds. This was in 1875. They

  were all five arrested, but the evidence against them

  was by no means conclusive. This Blessington or

  Sutton, who was the worst of the gang, turned

  informer. On his evidence Cartwright was hanged and

  the other three got fifteen years apiece. When they

  got out the other day, which was some years before

  their full term, they set themselves, as you perceive,

  to hunt down the traitor and to avenge the death of

  their comrade upon him. Twice they tried to get at

  him and failed; a third time, you see, it came off.

  Is there anything further which I can explain, Dr.

  Trevelyan?"

  "I think you have made it all remarkable clear," said

  the doctor. "No doubt the day on which he was

  perturbed was the day when he had seen of their

  release in the newspapers."

  "Quite so. His talk about a bur
glary was the merest

  blind."

  "But why could he not tell you this?"

  "Well, my dear sir, knowing the vindictive character

  of his old associates, he was trying to hide his own

  identity from everybody as long as he could. His

  secret was a shameful one, and he could not bring

  himself to divulge it. However, wretch as he was, he

  was still living under the shield of British law, and

  I have no doubt, Inspector, that you will see that,

  though that shield may fail to guard, the sword of

  justice is still there to avenge."

  Such were the singular circumstances in connection

  with the Resident Patient and the Brook Street Doctor.

  From that night nothing has been seen of the three

  murderers by the police, and it is surmised at

  Scotland Yard that they were among the passengers of

  the ill-fated steamer Norah Creina, which was lost

  some years ago with all hands upon the Portuguese

  coast, some leagues to the north of Oporto. The

  proceedings against the page broke down for want of

  evidence, and the Brook Street Mystery, as it was

  called, has never until now been fully dealt with in

  any public print.

  Adventure IX

  The Greek Interpreter

  During my long and intimate acquaintance with Mr.

  Sherlock Holmes I had never heard him refer to his

  relations, and hardly ever to his own early life.

  This reticence upon his part had increased the

  somewhat inhuman effect which he produced upon me,

  until sometimes I found myself regarding him as an

  isolated phenomenon, a brain without a heart, as

  deficient in human sympathy as he was pre-eminent in

  intelligence. His aversion to women and his

  disinclination to form new friendships were both

  typical of his unemotional character, but not more so

  than his complete suppression of every reference to

  his own people. I had come to believe that he was an

  orphan with no relatives living, but one day, to my

  very great surprise, he began to talk to me about his

  brother.

  It was after tea on a summer evening, and the

  conversation, which had roamed in a desultory,

  spasmodic fashion from golf clubs to the causes of the

  change in the obliquity of the ecliptic, came round at

  last to the question of atavism and hereditary

  aptitudes. The point under discussion was, how far

  any singular gift in an individual was due to his

  ancestry and how far to his own early training.

  "In your own case," said I, "from all that you have

  told me, it seems obvious that your faculty of

  observation and your peculiar facility for deduction

  are due to your own systematic training."

  "To some extent," he answered, thoughtfully. "My

  ancestors were country squires, who appear to have led

  much the same life as is natural to their class. But,

  none the less, my turn that way is in my veins, and

  may have come with my grandmother, who was the sister

  of Vernet, the French artist. Art in the blood is

  liable to take the strangest forms."

  "But how do you know that it is hereditary?"

  "Because my brother Mycroft possesses it in a larger

  degree than I do."

  This was news to me indeed. If there were another man

  with such singular powers in England, how was it that

  neither police nor public had heard of him? I put the

  question, with a hint that it was my companion's

  modesty which made him acknowledge his brother as his

  superior. Holmes laughed at my suggestion.

  "My dear Watson," said he, "I cannot agree with those

  who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician

  all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to

  underestimate one's self is as much a departure from

  truth as to exaggerate one's own powers. When I say,

  therefore, that Mycroft has better powers of

  observation than I, you may take it that I am speaking

  the exact and literal truth."

  "Is he your junior?"

  "Seven years my senior."

  "How comes it that he is unknown?"

  "Oh, he is very well known in his own circle."

  "Where, then?"

  "Well, in the Diogenes Club, for example."

  I had never heard of the institution, and my face must

  have proclaimed as much, for Sherlock Holmes pulled

  out his watch.

  "The Diogenes Club is the queerest club in London, and

  Mycroft one of the queerest men. He's always there

  from quarter to five to twenty to eight. It's six

  now, so if you care for a stroll this beautiful

  evening I shall be very happy to introduce you to two

  curiosities."

  "Five minutes later we were in the street, walking

  towards Regent's Circus.

  "You wonder," said my companion, "why it is that

  Mycroft does not use his powers for detective work.

  He is incapable of it."

  "But I thought you said--"

  "I said that he was my superior in observation and

  deduction. If the art of the detective began and

  ended in reasoning from an arm-chair, my brother would

  be the greatest criminal agent that ever lived. But

  he has no ambition and no energy. He will not even go

  out of his way to verify his own solution, and would

  rather be considered wrong than take the trouble to

  prove himself right. Again and again I have taken a

  problem to him, and have received an explanation which

  has afterwards proved to be the correct one. And yet

  he was absolutely incapable of working out the

  practical points which must be gone into before a case

  could be laid before a judge or jury."

  "It is not his profession, then?"

  "By no means. What is to me a means of livelihood is

  to him the merest hobby of a dilettante. He has an

  extraordinary faculty for figures, and audits the

  books in some of the government departments. Mycroft

  lodges in Pall Mall, and he walks round the corner

  into Whitehall every morning and back every evening.

  From year's end to year's end he takes no other

  exercise, and is seen nowhere else, except only in the

  Diogenes Club, which is just opposite his rooms."

  "I cannot recall the name."

  "Very likely not. There are many men in London, you

  know, who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy,

  have no wish for the company of their fellows. Yet

  they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the

  latest periodicals. It is for the convenience of

  these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now

  contains the most unsociable and unclubable men in

  town. No member is permitted to take the least notice

  of any other one. Save in the Stranger's Room, no

  talking is, under any circumstances, allowed, and

  three offences, if brought to the notice of the

  committee, render the talker liable to expulsion. My

  brother was one of the founders, and I have myself

  found it a very soothing atmosphere."

&
nbsp; We had reached Pall Mall as we talked, and were

  walking down it from the St. James's end. Sherlock

  Holmes stopped at a door some little distance from the

  Carlton, and, cautioning me not to speak, he led the

  way into the hall. Through the glass paneling I

  caught a glimpse of a large and luxurious room, in

  which a considerable number of men were sitting about

  and reading papers, each in his own little nook.

  Holmes showed me into a small chamber which looked out

  into Pall Mall, and then, leaving me for a minute, he

  came back with a companion whom I knew could only be

  his brother.

  Mycroft Holmes was a much larger and stouter man than

  Sherlock. His body was absolutely corpulent, but is

  face, though massive, had preserved something of the

  sharpness of expression which was so remarkable in

  that of his brother. His eyes, which were of a

  peculiarly light, watery gray, seemed to always retain

  that far-away, introspective look which I had only

  observed in Sherlock's when he was exerting his full

  powers.

  "I am glad to meet you, sir," said he, putting out a

  broad, fat hand like the flipper of a seal. "I hear

  of Sherlock everywhere since you became his

  chronicler. By the way, Sherlock, I expected to see

  you round last week, to consult me over that Manor

  House case. I thought you might be a little out of

  your depth."

  "No, I solved it," said my friend, smiling.

  "It was Adams, of course."

  "Yes, it was Adams."

  "I was sure of it from the first." The two sat down

  together in the bow-window of the club. "To any one

  who wishes to study mankind this is the spot," said

  Mycroft. "Look at the magnificent types! Look at

  these two men who are coming towards us, for example."

  "The billiard-marker and the other?"

  "Precisely. What do you make of the other?"

  The two men had stopped opposite the window. Some

  chalk marks over the waistcoat pocket were the only

  signs of billiards which I could see in one of them.

  The other was a very small, dark fellow, with his hat

  pushed back and several packages under his arm.

  "An old soldier, I perceive," said Sherlock.

  "And very recently discharged," remarked the brother.

  "Served in India, I see."

  "And a non-commissioned officer."

  "Royal Artillery, I fancy," said Sherlock.

  "And a widower."

  "But with a child."

  "Children, my dear boy, children."

  "Come," said I, laughing, "this is a little too much."

  "Surely," answered Holmes, "it is not hard to say that

  a man with that bearing, expression of authority, and

  sunbaked skin, is a soldier, is more than a private,

  and is not long from India."

  "That he has not left the service long is shown by his

  still wearing is ammunition boots, as they are

  called," observed Mycroft.

  "He had not the cavalry stride, yet he wore his hat on

  one side, as is shown by the lighter skin of that side

  of his brow. His weight is against his being a

  sapper. He is in the artillery."

  "Then, of course, his complete mourning shows that he

  has lost some one very dear. The fact that he is

  doing his own shopping looks as though it were his

  wife. He has been buying things for children, you

  perceive. There is a rattle, which shows that one of

  them is very young. The wife probably died in

  childbed. The fact that he has a picture-book under

  his arm shows that there is another child to be

  thought of."

  I began to understand what my friend meant when he

  said that his brother possessed even keener faculties

  that he did himself. He glanced across at me and

  smiled. Mycroft took snuff from a tortoise-shell box,

  and brushed away the wandering grains from his coat

  front with a large, red silk handkerchief.

  "By the way, Sherlock," said he, "I have had something

  quite after your own heart--a most singular

  problem--submitted to my judgment. I really had not

  the energy to follow it up save in a very incomplete

  fashion, but it gave me a basis for some pleasing

  speculation. If you would care to hear the facts--"