The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

ever a man was three parts mad with terror, that man's

  name is Pinner. What can have put the shivers on

  him?"

  "He suspects that we are detectives," I suggested.

  "That's it," cried Pycroft.

  Holmes shook his head. "He did not turn pale. He was

  pale when we entered the room," said he. "It is just

  possible that--"

  His words were interrupted by a sharp rat-tat from the

  direction of the inner door.

  "What the deuce is he knocking at his own door for?"

  cried the clerk.

  Again and much louder cam the rat-tat-tat. We all

  gazed expectantly at the closed door. Glancing at

  Holmes, I saw his face turn rigid, and he leaned

  forward in intense excitement. Then suddenly came a

  low guggling, gargling sound, and a brisk drumming

  upon woodwork. Holmes sprang frantically across the

  room and pushed at the door. It was fastened on the

  inner side. Following his example, we threw ourselves

  upon it with all our weight. One hinge snapped, then

  the other, and down came the door with a crash.

  Rushing over it, we found ourselves in the inner room.

  It was empty.

  But it was only for a moment that we were at fault.

  At one corner, the corner nearest the room which we

  had left, there was a second door. Holmes sprang to

  it and pulled it open. A coat and waistcoat were

  lying on the floor, and from a hook behind the door,

  with his own braces round his neck, was hanging the

  managing director of the Franco-Midland Hardware

  Company. His knees were drawn up, his head hung at a

  dreadful angle to his body, and the clatter of his

  heels against the door made the noise which had broken

  in upon our conversation. In an instant I had caught

  him round the waist, and held him up while Holmes and

  Pycroft untied the elastic bands which had disappeared

  between the livid creases of skin. Then we carried

  him into the other room, where he lay with a

  clay-colored face, puffing his purple lips in and out

  with every breath--a dreadful wreck of all that he had

  been but five minutes before.

  "What do you think of him, Watson?" asked Holmes.

  I stooped over him and examined him. His pule was

  feeble and intermittent, but his breathing grew

  longer, and there was a little shivering of his

  eyelids, which showed a thin white slit of ball

  beneath.

  "It has been touch and go with him," said I, "but

  he'll live now. Just open that window, and hand me

  the water carafe." I undid his collar, poured the

  cold water over his face, and raised and sank his arms

  until he drew a long, natural breath. "It's only a

  question of time now," said I, as I turned away from

  him.

  Holmes stood by the table, with his hands deep in his

  trouser's pockets and his chin upon his breast.

  "I suppose we ought to call the police in now," said

  he. "And yet I confess that I'd like to give them a

  complete case when they come."

  "It's a blessed mystery to me," cried Pycroft,

  scratching his head. "Whatever they wanted to bring

  me all the way up here for, and then--"

  "Pooh! All that is clear enough," said Holmes

  impatiently. "It is this last sudden move."

  "You understand the rest, then?"

  "I think that it is fairly obvious. What do you say,

  Watson?"

  I shrugged my shoulders. "I must confess that I am

  out of my depths," said I.

  "Oh surely if you consider the events at first they

  can only point to one conclusion."

  "What do you make of them?"

  "Well, the whole thing hinges upon two points. The

  first is the making of Pycroft write a declaration by

  which he entered the service of this preposterous

  company. Do you not see how very suggestive that is?"

  "I am afraid I miss the point."

  "Well, why did they want him to do it? Not as a

  business matter, for these arrangements are usually

  verbal, and there was no earthly business reason why

  this should be an exception. Don't you see, my young

  friend, that they were very anxious to obtain a

  specimen of your handwriting, and had no other way of

  doing it?"

  "And why?"

  "Quite so. Why? When we answer that we have made

  some progress with our little problem. Why? There

  can be only one adequate reason. Some one wanted to

  learn to imitate your writing, and had to procure a

  specimen of it first. And now if we pass on to the

  second point we find that each throws light upon the

  other. That point is the request made by Pinner that

  you should not resign your place, but should leave the

  manager of this important business in the full

  expectation that a Mr. Hall Pycroft, whom he had never

  seen, was about to enter the office upon the Monday

  morning."

  "My God!" cried our client, "what a blind beetle I

  have been!"

  "Now you see the point about the handwriting. Suppose

  that some one turned up in your place who wrote a

  completely different hand from that in which you had

  applied for the vacancy, of course the game would have

  been up. But in the interval the rogue had learned to

  imitate you, and his position was therefore secure, as

  I presume that nobody in the office had ever set eyes

  upon you."

  "Not a soul," groaned Hall Pycroft.

  "Very good. Of course it was of the utmost importance

  to prevent you from thinking better of it, and also to

  keep you from coming into contact with any one who

  might tell you that your double was at work in

  Mawson's office. Therefore they gave you a handsome

  advance on your salary, and ran you off to the

  Midlands, where they gave you enough work to do to

  prevent your going to London, where you might have

  burst their little game up. That is all plain

  enough."

  "But why should this man pretend to be his won

  brother?"

  "Well, that is pretty clear also. There are evidently

  only two of them in it. The other is personating you

  at the office. This one acted as your engager, and

  then found that he could not find you an employer

  without admitting a third person into his plot. That

  he was most unwilling to do. He changed his

  appearance as far as he could, and trusted that the

  likeness, which you could not fail to observe, would

  be put down to a family resemblance. But for the

  happy chance of the gold stuffing, your suspicions

  would probably never have been aroused."

  Hall Pycroft shook his clinched hands in the air.

  "Good Lord!" he cried, "while I have been fooled in

  this way, what has this other Hall Pycroft been doing

  at Mawson's? What should we do, Mr. Holmes? Tell me

  what to do."

  "We must wire to Mawson's."

  "They shut at twelve on Saturdays."

  "Never mind. There may be som
e door-keeper or

  attendant--"

  "Ah yes, they keep a permanent guard there on account

  of the value of the securities that they hold. I

  remember hearing it talked of in the City."

  "Very good; we shall wire to him, and see if all is

  well, and if a clerk of your name is working there.

  That is clear enough; but what is not so clear is why

  at sight of us one of the rogues should instantly walk

  out of the room and hang himself."

  "The paper!" croaked a voice behind us. The man was

  sitting up, blanched and ghastly, with returning

  reason in his eyes, and hands which rubbed nervously

  at the broad red band which still encircled his

  throat.

  "The paper! Of course!" yelled Holmes, in a paroxysm

  of excitement. "Idiot that I was! I thought so must

  of our visit that the paper never entered my head for

  an instant. To be sure, the secret must be there."

  He flattened it out upon the table, and a cry of

  triumph burst from his lips. "Look at this, Watson,"

  he cried. "It is a London paper, an early edition of

  the Evening Standard. Here is what we want. Look at

  the headlines: 'Crime in the City. Murder at Mawson &

  Williams's. Gigantic attempted Robbery. Capture of

  the Criminal.' Here, Watson, we are all equally

  anxious to hear it, so kindly read it aloud to us."

  It appeared from its position in the paper to have

  been the one event of importance in town, and the

  account of it ran in this way:

  "A desperate attempt at robbery, culminating in the

  death of one man and the capture of the criminal,

  occurred this afternoon in the City. For some time

  back Mawson & Williams, the famous financial house,

  have been the guardians of securities which amount in

  the aggregate to a sum of considerably over a million

  sterling. So conscious was the manager of the

  responsibility which devolved upon him in consequence

  of the great interests at stake that safes of the very

  latest construction have been employed, and an armed

  watchman has been left day and night in the building.

  It appears that last week a new clerk named Hall

  Pycroft was engaged by the firm. This person appears

  to have been none other that Beddington, the famous

  forger and cracksman, who, with his brother, had only

  recently emerged from a five years' spell of penal

  servitude. By some mean, which are not yet clear, he

  succeeded in wining, under a false name, this official

  position in the office, which he utilized in order to

  obtain moulding of various locks, and a thorough

  knowledge of the position of the strong room and the

  safes.

  "It is customary at Mawson's for the clerks to leave

  at midday on Saturday. Sergeant Tuson, of the City

  Police, was somewhat surprised, therefore to see a

  gentleman with a carpet bag come down the steps at

  twenty minutes past one. His suspicions being

  aroused, the sergeant followed the man, and with the

  aid of Constable Pollack succeeded, after a most

  desperate resistance, in arresting him. It was at

  once clear that a daring and gigantic robbery had been

  committed. Nearly a hundred thousand pounds' worth of

  American railway bonds, with a large amount of scrip

  in mines and other companies, was discovered in the

  bag. On examining the premises the body of the

  unfortunate watchman was found doubled up and thrust

  into the largest of the safes, where it would not have

  been discovered until Monday morning had it not been

  for the prompt action of Sergeant Tuson. The man's

  skull had been shattered by a blow from a poker

  delivered from behind. There could be no doubt that

  Beddington had obtained entrance by pretending that he

  had left something behind him, and having murdered the

  watchman, rapidly rifled the large safe, and then made

  off with his booty. His brother, who usually works

  with him, has not appeared in this job as far as can

  at present be ascertained, although the police are

  making energetic inquiries as to his whereabouts."

  "Well, we may save the police some little trouble in

  that direction," said Holmes, glancing at the haggard

  figure huddled up by the window. "Human nature is a

  strange mixture, Watson. You see that even a villain

  and murderer can inspire such affection that his

  brother turns to suicide when he learns that his neck

  is forfeited. However, we have no choice as to our

  action. The doctor and I will remain on guard, Mr.

  Pycroft, if you will have the kindness to step out for

  the police."

  Adventure IV

  The "Gloria Scott"

  I have some papers here," said my friend Sherlock

  Holmes, as we sat one winter's night on either side of

  the fire, "which I really think, Watson, that it would

  be worth your while to glance over. These are the

  documents in the extraordinary case of the Gloria

  Scott, and this is the message which struck Justice of

  the Peace Trevor dead with horror when he read it."

  He had picked from a drawer a little tarnished

  cylinder, and, undoing the tape, he handed me a short

  note scrawled upon a half-sheet of slate gray-paper.

  "The supply of game for London is going steadily up,"

  it ran. "Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, had been now

  told to receive all orders for fly-paper and for

  preservation of you hen-pheasant's life."

  As I glanced up from reading this enigmatical message,

  I saw Holmes chuckling at the expression upon my face.

  "You look a little bewildered," said he.

  "I cannot see how such a message as this could inspire

  horror. It seems to me to be rather grotesque than

  otherwise."

  "Very likely. Yet the fact remains that the reader,

  who was a fine, robust old man, was knocked clean down

  by it as if it had been the butt end of a pistol."

  "You arouse my curiosity," said I. "But why did you

  say just now that there were very particular reasons

  why I should study this case?"

  "Because it was the first in which I was ever

  engaged."

  I had often endeavored to elicit from my companion

  what had first turned is mind in the direction of

  criminal research, but had never caught him before in

  a communicative humor. Now he sat forward in this arm

  chair and spread out the documents upon his knees.

  Then he lit his pipe and sat for some time smoking and

  turning them over.

  "You never heard me talk of Victor Trevor?" he asked.

  "He was the only friend I made during the two years I

  was at college. I was never a very sociable fellow,

  Watson, always rather fond of moping in my rooms and

  working out my own little methods of thought, so that

  I never mixed much with the men of my year. Bar

  fencing and boxing I had few athletic tastes, and then

  my line of study was quite distinct from that o
f the

  other fellows, so that we had no pints of contact at

  all. Trevor was the only man I knew, and that only

  through the accident of his bull terrier freezing on

  to my ankle one morning as I went down to chapel.

  "It was a prosaic way of forming a friendship, but it

  was effective. I was laid by the heels for ten days,

  but Trevor used to come in to inquire after me. At

  first it was only a minute's chat, but soon his visits

  lengthened, and before the end of the term we were

  close friends. He was a hearty, full-blooded fellow,

  full of spirits and energy, the very opposite to me in

  most respects, but we had some subjects in common, and

  it was a bond of union when I found that he was as

  friendless as I. Finally, he invited me down to his

  father's place at Donnithorpe, in Norfolk, and I

  accepted his hospitality for a month of the long

  vacation.

  "Old Trevor was evidently a man of some wealth and

  consideration, a J.P., and a landed proprietor.

  Donnithorpe is a little hamlet just to the north of

  Langmere, in the country of the Broads. The house was

  and old-fashioned, wide-spread, oak-beamed brick

  building, with a fine lime-lined avenue leading up to

  it. There was excellent wild-duck shooting in the

  fens, remarkably good fishing, a small but select

  library, taken over, as I understood, from a former

  occupant, and a tolerable cook, so that he would be a

  fastidious man who could not put in a pleasant month

  there.

  "Trevor senior was a widower, and my friend his only

  son.

  "There had been a daughter, I heard, but she had died

  of diphtheria while on a visit to Birmingham. The

  father interested me extremely. He was a man of

  little culture, but with a considerable amount of rude

  strength, both physically and mentally. He knew

  hardly any books, but he had traveled far, had seen

  much of the world. And had remembered all that he had

  learned. In person he was a thick-set, burly man with

  a shock of grizzled hair, a brown, weather-beaten

  face, and blue eyes which were keen to the verge of

  fierceness. Yet he had a reputation for kindness and

  charity on the country-side, and was noted for the

  leniency of his sentences from the bench.

  "One evening, shortly after my arrival, we were

  sitting over a glass of port after dinner, when young

  Trevor began to talk about those habits of observation

  and inference which I had already formed into a

  system, although I had not yet appreciated the part

  which they were to play in my life. The old man

  evidently thought that his son was exaggerating in his

  description of one or two trivial feats which I had

  performed.

  "'Come, now, Mr. Holmes,' said he, laughing

  good-humoredly. 'I'm an excellent subject, if you can

  deduce anything from me.'

  "'I fear there is not very much,' I answered; 'I might

  suggest that you have gone about in fear of some

  personal attack with the last twelvemonth.'

  "The laugh faded from his lips, and he stared at me in

  great surprise.

  "'Well, that's true enough,' said he. 'You know,

  Victor,' turning to his son, 'when we broke up that

  poaching gang they swore to knife us, and Sir Edward

  Holly has actually been attacked. I've always been on

  my guard since then, though I have no idea how you

  know it.'

  "'You have a very handsome stick,' I answered. 'By

  the inscription I observed that you had not had it

  more than a year. But you have taken some pains to

  bore the head of it and pour melted lead into the hole

  so as to make it a formidable weapon. I argued that

  you would not take such precautions unless you had

  some danger to fear.'

  "'Anything else?' he asked, smiling.

  "'You have boxed a good deal in your youth.'

  "'Right again. How did you know it? Is my nose

  knocked a little out of the straight?'

  "'No,' said I. 'It is your ears. They have the

  peculiar flattening and thickening which marks the

  boxing man.'

  "'Anything else?'

  "'You have done a good deal of digging by your

  callosities.'

  "'Made all my money at the gold fields.'

  "'You have been in New Zealand.'

  "'Right again.'