 Adventure 3 of the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Chapter 3. The Stockbroker's Clerk. Shortly after my marriage, I had bought a connection in the Paddington district. Old Mr. Farquhar, from whom I purchased it, had at one time an excellent general practice. But his age and an affliction of the nature of Saint Wittus Dance, from which he suffered, had very much sinned it. The public not unnaturally goes on the principle, that he who would heal others must himself be whole, and looks at scans on the purity of powers of the man whose own case is beyond the reach of his drugs. Thus, as my predecessor weakened, his practice declined. Until when I purchased it from him, it had sunk from 1200 to little more than 300 a year. I had confidence, however, in my own use and energy, and was convinced that in a very few years the concern would be a flourishing as ever. For three months, after taking over the practice, I was kept very closely at work, and so little of my friends shall look homes, for I was too busy to visit Breaker Street, and he seldom went anywhere himself, save upon professional business. I was surprised, therefore, when one morning in June, as I said, reading the British medical journey after breakfast, I heard a ring at the bell, followed by the high, somewhat stritten tones of my old companion's voice. Ah, my dear Watson, said he, striding into the room. I am very delighted to see you. I trust that Mrs. Watson has entirely recovered from all the little excitements connected with our adventure of the sign of war. Thank you, we are both very well, said I, shaking him warmly by the hand. And I hope also he continued sitting down in the rocking chair, that the cares of medical practice have not entirely obliterated the interest which you used to take in our little detective problems. On the contrary, I answered, it was only last night that I was looking over my old notes and classifying some of our past results. I trust that you don't consider your collection closed. Not at all. I should wish nothing better than to have some more of such experiences. Today, for example? Yes, today, if you like. And as far off as Birmingham, certainly if you wish it. And the practice? I do my neighbors when he goes. He is always ready to work off the debt. Ha! Nothing could be better, said Holmes, leaning back in his chair and looking keenly at me from under his half-clothed lids. I perceive that you have been unwell lately. Summer colds are always a little drying. I was confined to the house by a severe chill for three days last week. I sought her that I had cast off every trace of it. So you have? You look remarkably robust. How then did you know if it? My dear fellow, you know my methods. You deduced it then? Certainly. And from what? From your slippers. I glanced down at the new patent leathers which I was wearing. How on earth? I began. But Holmes answered my question before it was asked. Your slippers are new, he said. You could not have had them more than a few weeks. The soles which you are at this moment presenting to me are slightly scorched. For a moment I thought they might have got wet and been burned in the drying. But near the instep there is a small circular wafer of paper with the shopman's hieroglyphics upon it. Dump food, of course, have removed this. You had then been sitting with your feet outstretched to the fire, which a man would hardly do even in so wet a dune as this if he were in his full health. Like all Holmes reasoning, the thing seemed simplicity itself, when it was once explained. Here it is sewed upon my features, and his smile had a tinge of bitterness. I am afraid that I rather give myself away when I explain, said he. Results without causes are much more impressive. You are ready to come to Birmingham then? Certainly. What is the case? You shall hear it all in the train. My client is outside in a four-wheeler. Can you come at once? In an instant, I scribbled a note to my neighbor, rushed upstairs to explain the matter to my wife, and joined Holmes upon the doorstep. Your neighbor is a doctor, said he, nodding at the brass plate. Yes, he bought a practice as I did. An old established one? Just the same as mine. Both have been ever since the houses were built. Ah, then you got hold of the best of the two. I think I did, but how do you know? What are the steps, my boy? Yours are worn three inches deeper than his. But this gentleman in the cab is my client, Mr. Hal Paycroft. Allow me to introduce you to him. Whip your horse up, cabbie, for we have only just seemed to catch our train. The man whom I found myself facing was a well-built, fresh complexioned young fellow, with a frank, honest face and a slight, crisp yellow mustache. He wore a very shiny top hat and a neat suit of sober black, which made him look what he was, a smart young city man, of the class who have been labeled cookies, but who give us our crack-volunteer regiments, and who turn out more fine athletes and swordsmen than any body of men in these islands. His round, ruddy face was naturally full of cheerness, but the corners of his mouth seemed to me to be pulled down in a half-comical distress. It was not, however, until we were all in the first-class carriage and well started upon our journey to Birmingham that I was able to learn what the trouble was which had driven him to Sherlock Holmes. We have a clear run here for 70 minutes, Holmes remarked. I want you, Mr. Hal Paycroft, to tell my friend your very interesting experience exactly as you have told it to me, or with more detail if possible. It will be of use to me to hear the succession of events again. It is a case, Watson, which may prove to have something in it, or may prove to have nothing, but which at least presents those unusual and outright features which are as dear to you as they are to me. No, Mr. Paycroft, I shall not interrupt you again. Our young companion looked at me with a twinkle in his eye. The worst of the story is, said he, that I show myself up as such a confounded fool. Of course, it may work out all right, and I don't see that I could have done otherwise, but if I have lost my grip and got nothing in exchange, I shall feel what a soft journey I have been. I'm not very good at telling a story, Dr. Watson, but it is like this with me. I used to have a billet at coxswain and woodhouses, of draper's gardens, but they were let in early in the spring through the Venezuelan loan, as no doubt you remember, and came a nasty cropper. I had been with them five years, and old coxswain gave me a ripping good testimonial when the smush came, but of course, we clerks were all turned adrift, the 27 of us. I tried here and tried there, but there were lots of other chaps on the same lay as myself, and it was a perfect frost for a long time. I had been taking three pounds a week at coxswains, and I had saved about 70 of them, but I soon worked my way through that, and out at the other end. I was fairly at the end of my teaser at last, and could hardly find the stamps to answer the advertisements on the envelopes to stick them to. I had worn out my boots paddling up office stairs, and I seemed just as far from getting a billet as ever. At last I saw a vacancy at Mouson and Williams, the great stock-breaking firm in Lombard Street. I dare say, EC, it is not much in your line, but I can tell you that this is about the richest house in London. The advertisement was to be answered by letter only. I sent in my testimonial and application, but without the least hope of getting it. Back came an answer by return, saying that if I would appear next Monday, I might take over my new duties at once, provided that my appearance was satisfactory. No one knows how these things are worked. Some people say that the manager just plunges his hand into the heap and takes the first that comes. Anyhow, it was my innings that time, and I don't ever wish to feel better pleased. The screw was a pound a weak price, and the duty is just about the same as at Coxons. And now I come to the queer part of the business. I was in Diggings Outcomes that way, 17 Potter's Terrace. Well, I was sitting doing a smoke that very evening after I had been promised the appointment, when up came my landlady with a card which had R2 Pinner, financial agent printed upon it. I had never heard the name before, I could not imagine what he wanted with me. But of course I asked her to show him up. In he walked a middle-sized, dark-haired, bark-eyed, black-birded man, with a touch of the sheenie about his noise. He had a brisk kind of way with him, and spoke sharply, like a man who knew the value of time. Mr. Halpikroft, I believe, he said. Yes, sir, I answered, pushing a chair towards him. They engage at Coxon at Woodhouse's? Yes, sir. And now on the staff of Moussons? Quite so. Well, said he, the fact is that I have heard some really extraordinary stories about your financial ability. You remember Parker, who used to be Coxons' manager? He can never say enough about it. Of course I was pleased to hear this. I had always been pretty sharp in the office, but I had never dreamed that I was talked about in the city in this fashion. You have a good memory, said he. Pretty fair, I answered modestly. Have you kept in touch with the market while you have been out of the work? He asked. Yes, I read the stock exchange list every morning. Now, that shows real application, he cried. That is the way to prosper. You won't mind my testing, will you? Let me see. How are Irishires? 106 and a quarter to 105 and seven-eighths. And New Zealand consolidated? 104. And British Broken Hills? Seven to seven and six? Wonderful, he cried, with his hands up. This quite fits in with all that I had heard. My boy, my boy, you are very much too good to be a clerk at Moussons. This outburst rather astonished me as you can think. Well, said I. Other people don't think quite so much of me as you seem to do, Mr. Pined. I had a hard enough fight to get this birth, and I am very glad to have it. Oh, man, you should soar above it. You are not in your true sphere. Now, I'll tell you how it stands with me. What I have to offer is little enough when measured by your ability. But when compared with Moussons, it's light to dark. Let me see. When do you go to Moussons? On Monday. Ha-ha! I think I would risk a little sporting flutters, and you don't go there at all. Not go to Moussons? No, sir. But that day you will be the business manager of the Franco-Midland Hardware Company, limited, with 134 branches in the towns and villages of France, not counting one in Brissos and one in San Remo. This took my breath away. I never heard of it, said I. Very likely not. It has been kept very quiet. For the capital was all privately subscribed, and it's too good a thing to let the public into. My brother Harry Pinner is promoter, and joins the board after allotment as managing director. He knew I was in the swim down here, and now asked me to pick up a good man cheap. A young bushing man with plenty of snap about him. Parker wrote a few, and that brought me here tonight. We can only offer you a baggerly 500 to start with. Five hundred a year, I shouted. Only that at the beginning, but you are to have an overriding commission of one percent on all business done by your agents, and you may take my word for it that this will come to more than your salary. But I know nothing about hardware, told my boy, you know about figures. My head buzzed, and I could hardly sit still in my chair. But suddenly a little chill of doubt came upon me. I must be frank with you, I said. Moulson only gives me two hundred, but Moulson is safe. Now really, I know so little about your company is that. Ah, smart, smart, he cried, in a kind of ecstasy of delight. You are the very men for us. You are not to be talked over, and quite right, too. Now, here's a note for a hundred pounds, and if you think that we can do business, you may just slip it into your pocket, as an advance upon your salary. That is very handsome, said I. When should I take over my new duties? Be in Birmingham tomorrow at one, said he. I have a note in my pocket here, which you will take to my brother. You will find him at 126 B Corporation Street, where the temporary offices of the company are situated. Of course, he must confirm your engagement, but between ourselves it will be all right. Really, I hardly know how to express my gratitude, Mr. Pinner, said I. Not at all, my boy. You who only got your desserts. There are one or two small things, mere formalities, which I must arrange with you. You have a bit of paper beside you there. Kindly write upon it. I am perfectly willing to act as business manager to the Franco Midland Hardware Company, limited, at a minimum salary of five hundred. I did as he asked, and he put the paper in his pocket. There was one other detail, said he. What do you intend to do about Mousons? I had forgotten all about Mousons in my joy. I'll write and resign, said I. Precisely what I don't want you to do. I had a row over you with Mousons manager. I had gone up to ask him about you, and he was very offensive, accused me of coaxing you away from the service of the firm, and that sort of thing. At last I fairly lost my temper. If you want good men, you should pay them a good price, said I. Here would rather have our small price than your big one, said he. I'll lay you a fire, said I, that when he has my offer, you'll never so much as hear from him again. Done, said he. We picked him out of the gutter, and he won't leave us so easily. Those were his very words. So impudent scoundrel, I cried, I have never so much as seen him in my life. Why should I consider him in any way? I shall certainly not write if you would rather I didn't. Good. That's a promise, said he, rising from his chair. Well, I'm delighted to have got so good a man for my brother. Here's your advance of a hundred pounds, and here is the letter. Make a note of the address, 126B Corporation Street, and remember that one o'clock tomorrow is your appointment. Good night, and may you have all the fortune that you deserve. That's just about all that passed between us, as near as I can remember. You can imagine, Dr. Watson, how pleased I was at such an extraordinary bit of good fortune. I set up half the night hugging myself over it, and next day I was off to Birmingham in a train that would take me in plenty time for my appointment. I took my things to a hotel in Newstreet, and then I made my way to the address which had been given me. It was a quarter of an hour before my time, but I thought that would make no difference. 126B was a passage between two large shops which led to a winding stone stair, from which there were many flats, led as offices to companies or professional men. The names of the occupants were painted at the bottom on the wall, but there was no such name as the Franco Midland Hardware Company Limited. I stood for a few minutes with my heart in my boots, wondering whether the whole thing was an elaborate hoax or not, when up came a man and addressed me. He was very like the chap I had seen the night before, the same figure, a voice, but he was clean shaven and his hair was lighter. Are you Mr. Hullpeycroft? He asked. Yes, said I. Oh, I was expecting you, but you are a trifle before your time. I heard a note from my brother this morning, in which he sang your praises very loudly. I was just looking for the offices when you came. We have not got our name up yet, for we only secured the temporary premises last week. Come up with me, and we will talk the matter over. I followed him to the top of a very lofty stair, and there, right under the slates, were a couple of empty dusty little rubes, uncarpeted and uncurtained, into which he led me. I had thought of a great office with shining tables and rows of clerks, such as I was used to, and I dare say I stared rather straight at the two deal chairs, and one little table, which with a ledger and a waste paper basket made up the whole furniture. Don't be disheartened, Mr. Hullpeycroft said my new acquaintance seeing the lengths of my face. Rome was not built in a day, and we have lots of money at our backs, so we don't cut much dash yet in offices. I sit down, and let me have your letter. I gave it to him, and he read it over very carefully. You seem to have made a vast impression upon my brother, Arthur, said he, and I know that he is a pretty true judge. He swears by London, you know, and I by Birmingham, but this time I shall follow his advice. Pre-consider yourself definitely engaged. What are my duties, I asked. You will eventually manage the great depot in Paris. Which will pour a flood of English crockery into the shops of 134 agents in France. The purchase will be completed in a week, and meanwhile you will remain in Birmingham and make yourself useful. How? For answer he took a big red book out of the drawer. This is a directory of Paris, said he, with the trades after the names of the people. I want you to take it home with you and to mark off all the hardware sellers, with their addresses. It would be of the greatest use to me to have them. Surely there are classified lists, I suggested. Not reliable ones. Their system is different from ours. Stick at it and let me have the list by Monday at twelve. Good day, Mr. Pickroft. If you continue to show zeal and intelligence, you will find the company a good master. I went back to the hotel with the big book under my arm, and with very conflicting feelings in my breast. On the one hand, I was definitely engaged and had a hundred pounds in my pocket. On the other, the look of the offices, the absence of name on the wall, and other of the points which would strike a businessman had left a bad impression, as to the position of my employers. However, come what might, I had my money. So I settled down to my task. All Sunday I was kept hard at work, and yet by Monday I had only got as far as age. I went round to my employer, found him in the same dismantled kind of room, and was told to keep at it until Wednesday, and then come again. On Wednesday it was still unfinished, so I hammered away until Friday, that is yesterday. Then I brought it round to Mr. Harry Pinner. Thank you very much, said he. I fear that I undurated the difficulty of the task. This list will be of very natural assistance to me. It took some time, said I. And now, said he, I want you to make a list of the furniture shops for they all sell crockery. Very good. And you can come up tomorrow evening at seven, and let me know how you are getting on. Don't overwork yourself. A couple of hours a day's musical hall in the evening would do you no harm after your labours. He loved, as he spoke, and I saw with a thrill that his second tooth upon the left-hand side had been very badly stuffed with gold. Sherlock Holmes wrapped his hands with delight, and I stared with astonishment at our client. You might well look surprised, Dr. Watson, but it is this way, said he. When I was speaking to the other chap in London, at the time that he laughed at my not-going-to-mousines, I happened to notice that his tooth was stuffed in this very identical fashion. The glint of the gold in each case caught my eyes, you see. When I put that with the voice and figure being the same, and only those things altered, which might be changed by a rather or a wig, I could not doubt that it was the same man. Of course you expect two brothers to be alike, but not that they should have the same tooth stuffed in the same way. He puffed me out, and I found myself in the street, hardly knowing whether I was on my head or my heels. Back I went to my hotel, put my head in a basin of cold water, and tried to sink it out. Why had he sent me from London to Birmingham? Why had he got there before me? And why had he written a letter from himself to himself? It was altogether too much for me, and I could make no sense of it. And then suddenly it struck me that what was dark to me might be very light to Mr. Sherlock Holmes. I had just time to get up to town by the night train, to see him this morning, and to bring you both back with me to Birmingham. There was a pause after the stockbroker's clerk had concluded his surprising experience. Then Sherlock Holmes cocked his eye at me, leaning back on the cushions with a pleased and yet critical face, like a connoisseur who has just taken his first sip of a comet vintage. Rather fine, Watson, is it not? said he. There are points in it which please me. I think that you will agree with me that an interview with Mr. Arthur Harry Pinner in the temporary offices of the Franco Midland Hardware Company Limited would be a rather interesting experience for both of us. But how can we do it? I asked. Oh, easily enough, said Hull, pickroft, cheerly. You are two friends of mine who are in want of a billet, and what could be more natural than that I should bring you both round to the managing director? Quite so, of course, said Holmes. I should like to have a look at the gentleman, and see if I can make anything of this little game. What qualities have you, my friend, which would make your services so valuable? Or is it possible that? He began biting his nails and staring blankly out of the window, and we hardly drew another word from him until we were in New Street. At seven o'clock that evening we were walking the three of us down Corporation Street to the company's offices. It's no use our being at all before our time, said our client. He only comes there to see me, apparently, for the place is deserted up to the very hour he names. That, this suggest you, remarked Holmes. But, Joe, I told you so, cried the clerk, that he walking ahead of us there. He pointed to a smallish, dark, wild-dressed man who was bustling along the other side of the road. As we watched him, he looked across at a boy who was bawling out the latest edition of the evening paper, and running over among the cabs and buses he bought one from him. Then, clutching it in his hand, he vanished through a doorway. There he goes, cried Hal Pickcroft. These are the company's offices into which he hexed gun. Come with me, and I'll fix it up as easily as possible. Following his lead, we ascended five stories, until we found ourselves outside a half-open door, at which our client tapped. A voice within bade us enter, and we entered a bare and furnished room, such as Hal Pickcroft had described. At the single table sat the man whom we had seen in the street, with his evening paper spread out in front of him. And as he looked up at us, it seemed to me that I had never looked upon a face, which bore such marks of grief, and of something beyond grief, a horror such as comes to few men in a lifetime. His brow glistened with perspiration, his cheeks were of the dull, dead white of a fish belly, and his eyes were wild and staring. He looked at his clerk, as though he failed to recognize him. And I could see by the astonishment depicted upon our conductor's face that this was by no means the usual appearance of his employer. You look ill, Mr. Pinner, he exclaimed. Yes, I'm not very well, answered the other, making obvious efforts to pull himself together, and licking his dry lips before he spoke. Who are these gentlemen whom you have brought with you? One is Mr. Harris of Bermond Sea, and the other is Mr. Price of this town, said our clerk, Ghibli. They are friends of mine and gentlemen of experience, but they have been out of place for some little time, and they hope that perhaps you might find an opening for them in the company's employment. Very possibly, very possibly, cried Mr. Pinner with a ghastly smile. Yes, I have no doubt that we shall be able to do something for you. What is your particular line, Mr. Harris? I am an accountant, said Holmes. Ah, yes, we shall find something of the sort, and you, Mr. Price? A clerk, said I. I have every hope that the company may accommodate you. I will let you know about it as soon as we come to an inconclusion, and now I beg that you will go, for God's sake, leave me to myself. These last words were shut out of him, as though the constraint which he has evidently setting upon himself had suddenly and utterly burst asunder. Holmes and I glanced to each other, and Halpecroft took a step towards the table. You forget, Mr. Pinner, that I am here by appointment to receive some directions from you, said he. Certainly, Mr. Pricecroft, certainly, the other resumed in a calmer tone. You may wait here a moment, and there is no reason why your friends should not wait with you. I will be entirely at your service in three minutes, if I might trespass upon your patience so far. He rose with a very courteous air, and bowing to us, he passed out through the door at the farther end of the room, which he closed behind him. What now, whispered Holmes, is he giving us the slip? Impossible, answered Pinner. Why so? The door leads into an inner room. There is no exit, none. Is it furnished? It was empty yesterday. Then what on earth can he be doing? There is something which I don't understand in this manner. If 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 Pinner. 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 room. What the dois is he knocking at his own door for? cried the clerk. Again and much louder came 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, gargling, gargling sound, and a brisk drumming upon woodwork. Holmes sprung 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 our 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 that 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 Pickroft untied the elastic bands which had disappeared between the levied 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 pulse was feeble and intermittent, but his breathing grew longer, and there was a little shivering of his eyelids, which showed a thin, wide 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-caroffee. 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 trousers' 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 Pickroft, scratching his head. I suppose I wanted to bring me all the way up here for, and then... Poo! All that is clear enough, said Holmes, impatiently. It is this last sudden move. You understand the rest, then? I think that 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 Pickroft's right declaration, by which he entered the service of this preposterous company. Do you not see how very suggestive that is? I'm 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. But 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. Someone 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 straws light upon the other. That point is a 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 Pickroft, 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 someone 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 intervals 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 Pickroft. 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 anyone who might tell you that your double was at work in Mouson's office. Therefore they gave you a handsome advance of your salary and ran you off to the Midlands, where they gave you enough work to do to prevent you 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 own brother? Well, that is pretty clear also. There are evidently only two of them in it. The other is impersonating 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 familiar resemblance. But for the happy chance of the gold stuffing, your suspicions would probably have never been aroused. Hal Pickroft shook his clenched hands in the air. Good Lord! he cried. While I have been fooled in this way, what has this other Hal Pickroft been doing at Mouson's? What should we do, Mr. Holmes? Tell me what to do. We must wire to Mouson's. They shot at twelve on Saturdays. Never mind. There may be some doorkeeper 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 rocks would 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 parochism of excitement, idiot that I was, I thought so much of our visit that the paper never entered my head for an instant. To be sure, this 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's 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 Mouson at Williams. 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 deaths of one man and the capture of the criminal, accured this afternoon in the city. For some time back, Mouson and Williams, the famous financial house, have been the guardians of securities which amount in the adurate to a sum of considerably over a million sterling. So conscious once the manager of the responsibility which devolved upon him in consequence, was the great interest at stake that saves 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 Piecroft was engaged by the firm. This person appears to have been none other than Beddington, the famous forger and cracksman, who, with his brother, had only recently emerged from a five-year spell of penal servitude. By some means which are not yet clear, he succeeded in winning under a false name this official position in the office, which he utilized in order to obtain modding of various locks under thorough knowledge of the position of the strongroom and the safes. It is customary at Mouson's for the clerks to leave at midday on Saturday. Sergeant Tucson 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 a secondable pollock 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 script in minds and other companies, was discovered in the bag. When 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 Tucson. 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 refilled 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 trouble in this direction, that Holmes, Glensing and the Higard figure, huddled up by the window. Human nature is a strange mixture, Watson. To see that even a villain and murderer can inspire such affection that his brother turns to suicide when he learns that his neck is fortified. However, we have no choice as to our action. The doctor and I will remain on guard. Mr. Pagroth, if you will have the kindness to step out for the police. End of the Adventure 3. The Stockbroker's Clerk. Adventure 4 of the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Zachary Brewstergeis. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Adventure 4 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 the drawer a little tarnished cylinder, and, undoing the tape, he handed me a short note scrawled upon a half sheet of slate grey paper. The supply of game for London is going steadily up, it ran. Headkeeper Hudson, we believe, had been now told to receive all orders for flypaper and for preservation of your hen pheasant's life. As I glanced up from reading this enigmatic 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 his mind in the direction of criminal research, but had never caught him before in a communicative humour. Now he sat forward in this arm-chair and spread out the documents upon his knees. Then he lipped his pipe and sat for some time smoking and turning them over. You have 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 of the other fellows, so that we had no points of contact at all. Trevor was the only man I knew, and that only through the accident of his bull terrier freezing onto 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 to 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 Donothorpe 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 JP and a landed proprietor. Donothorpe is a little hamlet just to the north of Langmere, in the country of the broads. The house was an old-fashioned, widespread, oak-beamed brick building, with a fine, limelined 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 Sr. 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 travelled 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 countryside, 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 twelve months. 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 Holley 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 colossities. Made all my money at the gold fields. You have been in New Zealand. Right again. You have visited Japan. Quite true. And you have been most intimately associated with someone whose initials were J.A., and whom you afterwards were eager to entirely forget. Mr. Trevor stood slowly up, fixed his large blue eyes upon me with a strange wild stare, and then pitched forward with his face among the nutshells which strewed the cloth in a dead faint. You can imagine, Watson, how shocked both his son and I were. His attack did not last long, however, for when we undid his collar and sprinkled the water from one of the finger-glasses over his face, he gave a gasp or two and sat up. Ah, boys, said he, forcing a smile. I hope I haven't frightened you. As long as I look there is a weak place in my heart and it does not take much to knock me over. I don't know how you manage this, Mr. Holmes, but it seems to me that all the detectives of fact and of fancy would be children in your hands. That's your line of life, sir, and you may take the word of a man who has seen something of the world. And that recommendation with the exaggerated estimate of my ability, with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby. At the moment, however, I was too much concerned at the sudden illness of my host to think of anything else. I hope that I have said nothing to pain you, said I. Well, you certainly touched upon rather a tender point. Might I ask how you know and how much you know? He spoke now in a half-gesting fashion, but a look of terror still lurked at the back of his eyes. It is simplicity itself, said I. When you bared your arm to draw that fish into the boat, I saw that J.A. had been tattooed in the bend of the elbow. The letters were still legible, but it was perfectly clear from their blurred appearance and from the staining of the skin round them that efforts had been made to obliterate them. It was obvious, then, that those initials had once been very familiar to you and that you had afterwards wished to forget them. What an eye you have, he cried with a sigh of relief. It is just as you say, but we won't talk of it. Of all ghosts, the ghosts of our old lovers are the worst. Come into the billiard room and have a quiet cigar. From that day, amid all his cordiality, there was always a touch of suspicion in Mr. Trevor's manner towards me. Then his son remarked it. You've given the Governor such a turn, said he, that he'll never be sure again of what you know and what you don't know. He did not mean to show it, I am sure, but it was so strongly in his mind that it peeped out at every action. At last I became so convinced that I was causing him uneasiness that I drew my visit to a close. On the very day, however, before I left, an incident occurred which proved in the sequel to be of importance. We were sitting out upon the lawn on garden chairs, the three of us, basking in the sun and admiring the view across the broads, when a maid came out to say that there was a man at the door who wanted to see Mr. Trevor. What is his name, asked my host. He would not give any. What does he want, then? He says that you know him and that he only wants a moment's conversation. Show him round here. An instant afterwards there appeared a little wise and fellow with a cringing manner and a shambling style of walking. He wore an open jacket with a splotch of tar on sleeve, a red and black check-shirt, dungary trousers, and heavy boots badly worn. His face was thin and brown and crafty, with a perpetual smile upon it which showed an irregular line of yellow teeth and his crinkled hands were half-closed, in a way that is distinctive of sailors. As he came slouching across the lawn, I heard Mr. Trevor make a sort of hiccoffing noise in his throat, and jumping out of his chair, he ran into the house. He was back in a moment, and I smelt a strong reek of brandy as he passed me. Well, my man, said he, what can I do for you? The sailor stood looking at him with puckered eyes and with the same loose-lipped smile upon his face. You don't know me, he asked. Why, dear me, it is surely Hudson, said Mr. Trevor, in a tone of surprise. Hudson it is, sir, said the seaman. Why, it's thirty year or more since I saw you last. Here you are in your house, and me still picking my salt-meat out of the harness-cask. Tut, you will find that I have not forgotten old times, cried Mr. Trevor, and walking towards the sailor, he said something in a low voice. Go into the kitchen, he continued out loud, and you will get food and drink. I have no doubt that I shall find you a situation. Thank you, sir, said the seaman. Touching his forelock, I'm just off a two-yearer in an eight-knot tramp, shorthanded at that, and I want a rest. I thought I'd get it either with Mr. Beddose or with you. Ah! cried Trevor. You know where Mr. Beddose is. Bless you, sir, I know where all my old friends are, said the fellow with the sinister smile, and he slouched off after the mage to the kitchen. Mr. Trevor mumbled something to us about having been shipmate with the man when he was going back to the diggings, and then leaving us on the lawn, he went indoors. An hour later, when we entered the house, we found him stretched dead drunk upon the dining-room sofa. The whole incident left a most ugly impression upon my mind, and I was not sorry next day to leave Donothorpe behind me, for I felt that my presence must be a source of embarrassment to my friend. All this occurred during the first month of the long vacation. I went up to my London rooms, where I spent seven weeks working out a few experiments in organic chemistry. One day, however, when the autumn was far advanced and the vacation drawing to a close, I received a telegram from my friend imploring me to return to Donothorpe and saying that he was in great need of my advice and assistance. Of course I dropped everything and set out for the north once more. He met me with the dog-cart at the station, and I saw at a glance that the last two months had been very trying ones for him. He had grown thin and care-worn, and had lost the loud, cheery manner for which he had been remarkable. "'The Governor is dying,' were the first words he said. "'Impossible,' I cried. "'What is the matter?' Apoplexy, nervous shock. He's been on the verge all day. I doubt if we shall find him alive.' I was, as you may think, Watson, horrified at this unexpected news. "'What has caused it?' I asked. "'Ah, that is the point. Jump in and we can talk it over while we drive. You remember that fellow who came upon the evening before you left us?' "'Perfectly.' "'Do you know who it was that we let into the house that day?' "'I have no idea.' "'It was the devil, Holmes,' he cried. I stared at him in astonishment. "'Yes, it was the devil himself. We have not had a peaceful hour since, not one. The Governor has never held up his head from that evening, and now the life has been crushed out of him and his heart broken all through this accursed Hudson.' "'What power had he then?' "'Ah, that is what I would give so much to know. The kindly charitable good old Governor. How could he have fallen into the clutches of such a ruffian? But I am so glad that you have come, Holmes. I trust very much to your judgment and discretion, and I know that you will advise me for the best.' We were dashing along the smooth white country road with the large stretch of the broads in front of us, glimmering in the red light of the setting sun. From a grove upon our left I could already see the high chimneys in the flagstaff which marked the squire's dwelling. "'My father made the fellow gardener,' said my companion, and then, as that did not satisfy him, he was promoted to be butler. The house seemed to be at his mercy, and he wandered about and did what he chose in it. The maids complained of his drunken habits and his vile language. The dad raised their wages all round to recompense them for the annoyance. The fellow would take the boat and my father's best gun and treat himself to little shooting trips, and all this was such a sneering, leering, insolent face that I would have knocked him down twenty times over if he had been a man of my own age. I tell you, Holmes, I have had to keep a tight hold upon myself all this time, and now I am asking myself whether, if I had let myself go a little more, I might not have been a wiser man. Well, matters went from bad to worse with us, and this animal Hudson became more and more intrusive, until it last on making some insolent reply to my father in my presence one day, I took him by the shoulders and turned him out of the room. He slunk away with a livid face and two venomous eyes which uttered more threats than his tongue could do. I don't know what passed between the poor dad and him after that, but the dad came to me the next day and asked me whether I would mind apologizing to Hudson. I refused, as you can imagine, and asked my father how he could allow such a wretch to take such liberties with himself and his household. Ah, my boy, said he, it is all very well to talk, but you don't know how I am placed, but you shall know, Victor. I'll see that you shall know come what may. You wouldn't believe harm of your poor old father, would you, lad? He was very much moved, and shut himself up in the study all day, where I could see through the window that he was writing busily. That evening there came what seemed to me to be a grand release, for Hudson told us that he was going to leave us. He walked into the dining-room as we sat after dinner and announced his intention in the thick voice of a half-drunken man. I've had enough of Norfolk, said he. I'll run down to Mr. Beddow's in New Hampshire. He'll be as glad to see me as you were, I daresay. You're not going away in any kind of spirit, Hudson, I hope," said my father, with a tameness which made my blood boil. I've not had my apology, said he, sulkily, glancing in my direction. Victor, you will acknowledge that you have used this worthy fellow rather roughly, said the dad, turning to me. On the contrary, I think that we have both shown extraordinary patience towards him. I answered, Oh, you do, do you, he snarls. Very good, mate, we'll see about that. He slouched out of the room, and half an hour afterwards left the house, leaving my father in a state of pitiable nervousness. Night after night I heard him pacing his room, and it was just as he was recovering his confidence that the blow did at last fall. And how, I asked eagerly. In a most extraordinary fashion. A letter arrived from my father yesterday evening, bearing the Fordingbridge postmark. My father read it, clapped both his hands to his head, and began running round the room in little circles like a man who has been driven out of his senses. When at last I drew him down onto the sofa, his mouth and eyelids were all puckered on one side, and I saw that he had a stroke. Dr. Fordham came over at once. We put him to bed, but the paralysis has spread, he has shown no sign of returning consciousness, and I think that we shall hardly find him alive. You horrify me, Trevor, I cried. What then could have been in this letter to cause so dreadful a result? Nothing. There lies the inexplicable part of it. The message was absurd and trivial. Oh, my God, it is as I feared. As he spoke we came round the curve of the avenue, and saw in the fading light that every blind in the house had been drawn down. As we dashed up to the door, my friend's face convulsed with grief. A gentleman in black emerged from it. When did it happen, doctor? Asked Trevor. Almost immediately after you left. Did he recover consciousness? Or an instant before the end? Any message for me? Only that the papers were in the back drawer of the Japanese cabinet. My friend ascended with the doctor to the Chamber of Death while I remained in the study, turning the whole matter over and over in my head, and feeling as somber as ever I had done in my life. What was the past of this Trevor, pugilist, traveller, and gold digger? And how had he placed himself in the power of this acid-faced seaman? Why, too, should he faint at an allusion to the half-a-faceed initials upon his arm, and die of fright when he had a letter from Fortingham? Then I remembered that Fortingham was in Hampshire, and that this Mr. Beddow's, whom the seaman had gone to visit and presumably to blackmail, had also been mentioned as living in Hampshire. The letter, then, might either come from Hudson, the seaman, saying that he had betrayed the guilty secret which appeared to exist, or it might come from Beddow's, warning an old confederate that such a betrayal was imminent. So far it seemed clear enough. But then how could this letter be trivial and grotesque, as described by the sun? He must have misread it. If so, it must have been one of those ingenious secret codes which mean one thing while they seem to mean another. I must see this letter. If there were a hidden meaning in it, I was confident that I could pluck it forth. For an hour I sat pondering over it in the gloom, until at last a weeping maid brought in a lamp, and close at her heels came my friend Trevor, pale but composed, with these very papers which lie upon my knee held in his grasp. He sat down opposite to me, drew the lamp to the edge of the table, and handed me a short note scribbled, as you see, on a single sheet of grey paper. The supply of game for London is going steadily up, it ran. Headkeeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive all orders for fly paper and for preservation of your hen pheasant's life. I dare say my face looked as bewildered as yours did just now when I first read this message. Then I re-read it very carefully. It was evidently as I had thought, and some secret meaning must lie buried in this strange combination of words. Or could it be that there was a pre-arranged significance to such phrases as fly paper and hen pheasant? Such a meaning would be arbitrary and could not be deduced in any way, and yet I was loath to believe that this was the case, and the presence of the word Hudson seemed to show that the subject of the message was as I had guessed, and that it was from beddows rather than the cellar. I tried it backwards, but the combination life pheasant's hen was not encouraging. Then I tried alternate words, but neither the of four nor supply game London promised to throw any light upon it. And then in an instant the key of the riddle was in my hands, and I saw that every third word, beginning with the first, would give a message which might well drive old Trevor to despair. It was short and terse, the warning as I now read it to my companion. The game is up, Hudson has told all, fly for your life. Victor Trevor sank his face into his shaking hands. It must be that, I suppose, said he. This is worse than death, for it means disgrace as well. But what is the meaning of these headkeepers and head pheasants? It means nothing to the message. But it might mean a good deal to us if we had no other means of discovering the sender. You see that he has begun by writing, the game is and so on. Afterwards he had to fulfill the pre-arranged cipher to fill in any two words in each space. He would naturally use the first words which came to his mind, and if there were so many which referred to sport among them, you may be tolerably sure that he is either an ardent shot or interested in breeding. Do you know anything of this bettos? Why, now that you mention it, said he, I remember that my poor father used to have an invitation from him to shoot over his preserves every autumn. Then it is undoubtedly from him that the note comes, said I. It only remains for us to find out what this secret was which the sailor Hudson seems to have held over the heads of these two wealthy and respected men. Alas, homes I fear that it is one of sin and shame, cried my friend. But from you I shall have no secrets. Here is the statement which was drawn up by my father when he knew that the danger from Hudson had become imminent. I found it in the Japanese cabinet, as he told the doctor. Take it and read it to me, for I have neither the strength nor the courage to do it myself. These are the very papers Watson which he handed to me, and I will read them to you, as I read them in the old study that night, to him. They are endorsed outside, as you see, some particulars of the voyage of the bark Gloria Scott, from her leaving Falmouth on the 8th October, 1855, to her destruction in north latitude fifteen degrees twenty minutes, west longitude twenty-five degrees fourteen minutes, on November sixth. It is in the form of a letter and runs in this way. My dear, dear son, now that approaching disgrace begins to darken the closing years of my life, I can write with all truth and honesty that it is not the terror of the law, it is not the loss of my position in the county, nor is it my fall in the eyes of all who have known me which cuts me to the heart. But it is the thought that you should come to blush for me, you who love me and who have seldom, I hope, had reason to do other than respect me. But if the blow falls which is forever hanging over me, then I should wish you to read this, that you may know straight from me how far I have been to blame. On the other hand, if all should go well, which may kind God Almighty grant, then if by any chance this paper should still be undestroyed and should fall into your hands, I conjure you by all you hold sacred by the memory of your dear mother and by the love which had been between us to hurl it into the fire and to never give one thought to it again. If then your eye goes on to read this line, I know that I shall already have been exposed and dragged from my home, or as is more likely, for you know that my heart is weak, by lying with my tongue sealed forever in death. In either case the time for suppression is past, and every word which I tell you is the naked truth, and this I swear as I hope for mercy. My name, dear lad, is not Trevor. I was James Armitage in my younger days, and you can understand now the shock that it was to me a few weeks ago when your college friend addressed me in words which seemed to imply that he had surprised my secret. As Armitage it was that I entered a London banking-house, and as Armitage I was convicted of breaking my country's laws and was sentenced to transportation. Do not think very harshly of me, laddie. It was a debt of honour, so-called, which I had to pay, and I used money which was not my own to do it, in the certainty that I could replace it before there could be any possibility of its being missed. But the most dreadful ill luck pursued me, the money which I had reckoned upon never came to hand, and a premature examination of accounts exposed my deficit. The case might have been dealt leniently with, but the laws were more harshly administered thirty years ago than now, and on my twenty-third birthday I found myself chained as a felon with thirty-seven other convicts in tween decks of the bark glorious scot bound for Australia. It was the year fifty-five when the Crimean War was at its height, and the old convict ships had been largely used as transports in the Black Sea. The government was compelled, therefore, to use smaller and less suitable vessels for sending out their prisoners. The glorious scot had been in the Chinese tea trade, but she was an old-fashioned, heavy-bowed, broad-beamed craft, and the new clippers had cut her out. She was a five-hundred-ton boat, and besides her thirty-eight jail birds, she carried twenty-six of a crew, eighteen soldiers, a captain, three mates, a doctor, a chaplain, and four warders. Nearly a hundred souls were in her, all told when we set sail from Falmouth. The partitions between the cells of the convicts, instead of being of thick oak as is usual in convict ships, were quite thin and frail. The man next to me, upon the aft side, was one whom I had particularly noticed when we were led down the quay. He was a young man with a clear, hairless face, a long, thin nose, and rather nutcracker jaws. He carried his head very jauntly in the air, had a swaggering style of walking, and was, above all else, remarkable for his extraordinary height. I don't think any of our heads would have come up to his shoulder, and I am sure that he could not have measured less than six and a half feet. It was strange among so many sad and weary faces to see one which was full of energy and resolution. The sight of it was to me like a fire in a snowstorm. I was glad then to find that he was my neighbor, and gladder still when, in the dead of the night, I heard a whisper close to my ear, and found that he had managed to cut an opening in the board which separated us. Hello, chummy, said he, what's your name and what are you here for? I answered him, and asked in turn who I was talking with. I'm Jack Prendergast, said he, and by God you'll learn to bless my name before you've done with me. I remembered hearing of his case, for it was one which had made an immense sensation throughout the country, sometime before my own arrest. He was a man of good family and of great ability, but of incuriably vicious habits, who had, by an ingenious system of fraud, obtained huge sums of money from the leading London merchants. Ha! Ha! You remember my case, said he proudly. Very well indeed. Then maybe you remember something queer about it? What was that then? I'd had nearly a quarter of a million hadn't I? So it was said. But none was recovered, eh? No. Well, where do you suppose the balance is? he asked. I have no idea, said I. Right between my finger and thumb, he cried. By God I've got no more pounds to my name than you've hairs on your head, and if you've money, my son, and know how to handle it and spread it, you can do anything. Now you don't think it likely that a man who could do anything is going to wear his britches out, sitting in the stinking hold of a rat-gutted, beetle-ridden, moldy old coffin of a Chin-China coaster. No, sir, such a man will look after himself and will look after his chums. You may lay to that, you hold on to him and you may kiss the book that he'll haul you through. That was his style of talk, and at first I thought it meant nothing, but after a while, when he had tested me and sworn me in with all possible solemnity, he let me understand that there really was a plot to gain command of the vessel. A dozen of the prisoners had hatched it before they came aboard. Prendergast was the leader, and his money was the mote of power. I'd a partner, said he, a rare good man as true as a stock to a barrel. He's got the dibs he has, and where you think he is at the moment. Why he's the chaplain of this ship, the chaplain no less. He came aboard with a black coat and his papers right, and money enough in his box to buy the thing right up from keel to main-truck. The crew are his body and soul. He could buy him at so much a gross with a cash discount, and he did it before ever they signed on. He's got two of the warders and Maria, the second mate, and he'd get the captain himself if he thought him worth it. What are we to do, then, I asked. What do you think, said he, will make the coats of some of these soldiers redder than ever the tailor did. But they are armed, said I. And so shall we be, my boy. There's a brace of pistols for every mother's son of us, and if we can't carry this ship with the crew at our back, it's time we were all sent to a young Mrs. Boarding school. You speak to your mate upon the left tonight, and see if he is to be trusted. I did so, and found my other neighbour to be a young fellow in much the same position as myself, whose crime had been forgery. His name was Evans, but he afterwards changed it, like myself, and his is now a rich and prosperous man in the South of England. He was ready enough to join the conspiracy, as the only means of saving ourselves, and before we had crossed the bay there were only two of the prisoners who were not in the secret. One of these was of weak mind, and we did not dare to trust him, and the other was suffering from jaundice and could not be of any use to us. From the beginning there was really nothing to prevent us from taking possession of the ship. The crew were a set of ruffians, specially picked for the job. The sham chaplain came into ourselves to exhort us, carrying a black bag supposed to be full of tracts. And so often did he come that by the third day we had each stowed away at the foot of our beds a file, a brace of pistols, a pound of powder, and twenty slugs. Two of the warders were agents of Prendergast, and the second mate was his right-hand man. The captain, the two mates, two warders, Lieutenant Martin, his eighteen soldiers, and the doctor were all that we had against us. Yet, safe as it was, we determined to neglect no precaution and to make our attack suddenly by night. It came, however, more quickly than we expected, and in this way. One evening, about the third week after our start, the doctor had come down to see one of the prisoners who was ill, and putting his hand down on the bottom of his bunk, he felt the outline of the pistols. If he had been silent, he might have blown the whole thing, but he was a nervous little chap, so he gave a cry of surprise and turned so pale that the man knew what was up in an instant and seized him. He was gagged before he could give the alarm and tie down upon the bed. He had unlocked the door that led to the deck, and we were through it in a rush. The two sentries were shot down, and so was a corporal who came running to see what was the matter. There were two more soldiers at the door of the state room, and their muskets seemed not to be loaded, for they never fired upon us, and they were shot while trying to fix their bayonets. Then we rushed on into the captain's cabin, but as we pushed open the door there was an explosion from within, and there he lay with his brains smeared over the chart of the Atlantic which was pinned upon the table, while the chaplain stood with a smoking pistol in his hand at his elbow. The two mates had both been seized by the crew, and the whole business seemed to be settled. The state room was next to the cabin, and we flocked in there and flopped down on the cities, all speaking together, where we were just mad with the feeling that we were free once more. There were lockers all round and Wilson, the sham chaplain, knocked one of them in and pulled out a dozen of brown sherry. We cracked off the necks of the bottles, poured the stuff out into tumblers, and were just tossing them off, when in an instant without warning there came the roar of muskets in our ears and the saloon was so full of smoke that we could not see across the table. When it cleared again the place was a shambles. Wilson and eight others were wriggling on the top of each other on the floor, and the blood and the brown sherry on that table turned me sick now when I think of it. We were so cowed by the sight that I think we should have given the job up if it had not been for Prendergast. He bellowed like a bull and rushed for the door with all that were left alive at his heels. Out we ran and there on the poop with a lieutenant and ten of his men. The swing skylights above the saloon table had been a bit open, and they had fired on us through the slit. We got on them before they could load, and they stood to it like men, but we had the upper hand of them, and in five minutes it was all over. My God! Was there ever a slaughterhouse like that ship? Prendergast was like a raging devil, and he picked the soldiers up as if they had been children and threw them overboard alive or dead. There was one sergeant that was horribly wounded, and yet kept on swimming for a surprising time until someone in mercy blew out his brains. When the fighting was over there was no one left of our enemies except just the warders, the mates, and the doctor. It was over them that the great quarrel arose. There were many of us who were glad enough to win back our freedom, and yet who had no wish to have murder on our souls. It was one thing to knock the soldiers over with their muskets in their hands, and it was another to stand by while men were being killed in cold blood. Eight of us, five convicts, and three sailors, said that we would not see it done. But there was no moving Prendergast and those who were with him. Our only chance of safety lay in making a clean job of it, said he, and he would not leave a tongue with power to wag in a witness-box. Finally came to our sharing the fate of the prisoners, but at last he said that if we wished we might take a boat and go. We jumped at the offer where we were already sick of these blood-thirsty doings, and we saw that there would be worse before it was done. We were given a suit of sailor-togs each, a barrel of water, two casks, one of junk and one of biscuits, and a compass. Prendergast threw us over a chart, told us that we were shipwrecked mariners whose ship had foundered in latitude fifteen degrees and launched to twenty-five degrees west, and then cut the painter and let us go. And now I come to the most surprising part of my story, my dear son. The seamen had hauled the four-yard aback during the rising, but now as we left them they brought it square again, and as there was a light wind from the north and east the bark began to draw slowly away from us. Our boat lay rising and falling upon the long, smooth rollers, and Evans and I, who were the most educated of the party, were sitting in the sheets, working out our position, and planning what coast we should make for. It was a nice question, for the Cape de Verre was about five hundred miles to the north of us, and the African coast about seven hundred to the east. On the whole, as the wind was coming round to the north, we thought that Sierra Leone might be best, and turned our head in that direction, the bark being at that time nearly hauled down on our starboard quarter. Suddenly as we looked at her we saw a dense black cloud of smoke shoot up from her, which hung like a monstrous tree upon the skyline. A few seconds later a roar-like thunder burst upon our ears, and as the smoke thinned away there was no sign left of the glorious scot. In an instant we swept the boat's head round again and pulled with all our strength for the place where the haze still trailing over the water marked the scene of this catastrophe. It was a long hour before we reached it, and at first we feared that we had come too late to save any one. A splintered boat, and a number of crates and fragments of spars rising and falling on the waves, showed us where the vessel had foundered. But there was no sign of life, and we had turned away in despair when we heard a cry for help, and saw at some distance a piece of wreckage with a man lying stretched across it. When we pulled him aboard the boat he proved to be a young sea man of the name of Hudson, who was so burned and exhausted that he could give us no account of what had happened until the following morning. It seemed that after we had left Prendergast and his gang had proceeded to put to death the five remaining prisoners. The two warders had been shot, and thrown overboard, and so also had the third mate. Prendergast then descended into the tween decks, and with his own hands cut the throat of the unfortunate surgeon. There only remained the first mate, who was a bold and active man. When he saw the convict approaching him with a bloody knife in his hand he kicked off his bonds, which he had somehow contrived to loosen, and rushing down the deck he plunged into the after-hold. A dozen convicts, who descended with their pistols in search of him, found him with a matchbox in his hand seated beside an open powder-barrel, which was one of a hundred carried on board, and swearing that he would blow all hands up if he were in any way molested. An instant later the explosion occurred, though Hudson thought it was caused by the misdirected bullet of one of the convicts rather than the mate's match. Be the cause what it may, it was the end of the glorious Scott and of the rabble who held command of her. Such, in a few words, my dear boy, is the history of this terrible business in which I was involved. Next day we were picked up by the brig Hotspur, bound for Australia, whose captain found no difficulty in believing that we were the survivors of a passenger ship which it foundered. The transport ship Glorious Scott was set down by the Admiralty as being lost at sea, and no word has ever leaked out as to her true fate. After an excellent voyage the Hotspur landed us at Sydney, where Evans and I changed our names and made our way to the Diggings, where, among the crowds who were gathered from all nations, we had no difficulty in losing our former identities. The rest I need not relate. We prospered, we travelled, we came back as rich colonials to England, and we bought country estates. For more than twenty years we have led peaceful and useful lives, and we hoped that our past was forever buried. Imagine then my feelings when in the seaman who came to us I recognized instantly the man who had been picked off the wreck. He had tracked us down somehow, and had set himself to live upon our fears. You will understand now how it was that I strove to keep the peace with him, and you will in some measure sympathize with me in the fears which fill me now that he has gone from me to his other victim with the threats upon his tongue. Underneath is written in a hand so shaky as to be hardly legible. Beddow's writes in cipher to say H has told all, Sweet Lord, have mercy on our souls. That was the narrative which I read that night to young Trevor, and I think Watson that under the circumstances it was a dramatic one. The good fellow was heartbroken at it, and went out to the terai tea-planting, where I hear that he is doing well. As to the sailor and Beddow's, neither of them was ever heard of again after that day on which the letter of warning was written. They both disappeared utterly and completely. No complaint had been lodged with the police, so that Beddow's had mistaken a threat for a deed. Hudson had been seen lurking about, and it was believed by the police that he had done away with Beddow's and had fled. For myself I believed that the truth was exactly the opposite. I think that it is most probable that Beddow's pushed to desperation and believing himself to have been already betrayed had revenged himself upon Hudson, and had fled from the country with as much money as he could laid his hands on. Those are the facts of the case, Doctor, and if they are of any use to your collection, I am sure that they are very heartily at your service. End of THE GLORIOUS SCOTT From the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes Read by Zachary Brewstergeist, Greenbelt, Maryland, June 2007