Books at Bedtime by Calming Anxiety
The Sign of the Four Chapter 7
The Episode of the Barrel
The police had brought a cab with them, and in this I escorted Miss Mauston back to her
home.
After the angelic fashion of women, she had born trouble with a calm face as long as there
was someone weaker than herself to support, and I found her bright and placid by the side
of the frightened housekeeper.
In the cab, however, she first turned faint and then burst into a passion of weeping.
So sorely had she been tried by the adventures of the night.
She has told me since that she thought me cold and distant upon that journey.
She little guessed the struggle within my breast, or the effort of self-estraint which held
me back.
My sympathies and my love went out to her, even as my hand had in the garden.
I felt that years of the conventionalities of life could not teach me to know her sweet
brave nature as had one day of strange experiences.
Yet, there were two thoughts which sealed the words of affection upon my lips.
She was weak and helpless, shaken in nerve and mind.
It was to take her at a disadvantage to a true love upon her at such a time.
Worse still, she was rich.
If Holmes' research was successful, she would be in aeros.
Was it fair?
Was it honourable?
That a half-paste surgeon should take such advantage of an intimacy which chance it brought
about.
Might she not look upon me as a mere vulgar fortune-seeker?
I could not bear to risk that such a thought should cross her mind.
This agrar-trasure intervened like an impassable barrier between us.
It was nearly two o'clock when we reached Mrs. Cessal Forresters.
The servants had retired hours ago, but Mrs. Forrester had been so interested by the strange
message which Miss Morston had received that she had sat up in the hope of her return.
She opened the door herself, a middle-aged, graceful woman, and it gave me joy to see how
tenderly her arm stole round the others' waist and how motherly was the voice in which
she greases her.
She was clearly no mere paid dependent, but an honoured friend.
I was introduced and Mrs. Forrester earnestly begged me to step in and tell about the adventures.
I explained, however, the importance of my errand and promised faithfully to call and report
any progress which we might make with the case.
As we drove away, I stole the glance back and I still seemed to see that little group on
the step, the two graceful, clinging figures, the half-open door, the hall-light shining through
the stained glass.
The barometer and the bright stair-runs, it was seizing to catch even that passing glimpse
of a tranquil English home in the midst of the wild, dark business which had absorbed
this.
And the more I thought of what had happened, the wilder and dark-ric groom.
I reviewed the whole extraordinary sequence of events as I rattled on through the silent
gaslit streets.
There was the original problem that at least was pretty clear now.
The death of Captain Morston, the sending of the pearls, the advertisement, the letter,
we had had light upon all those events.
They had only led us, however, to a deeper and far more tragic mystery.
The Indian treasure, the curious plan found among Morston's baggaged, the strange scene
at Major Shultzo's death, the rediscovery of the treasure immediately followed by the
murder of the discoverer, the very singular accompaniments to the crime, the footsteps,
the remarkable weapons, the word upon the card, corresponding with those upon Captain
Morston's chart.
Here was indeed a labyrinth in which a man less singularly endowed than my fellow-large
might weld a spare of ever finding the clue.
Pinchin Lane was a row of shabby two-story brick houses in the lower quarter of Lambert.
I had to knock for some time at number three before I could make my impression.
At last, however, there was a glint of a candle behind the blind, and a face looked out
at the upper window.
Get one new drunken vagabones set to face.
If you kick up any more row, I'll open the kennels and let out 43 dogs upon you.
If you'll let one out, it's just what I have come for, said I.
I want to get one yellow voice, so help me gracious.
I have a wiper in the bag and I'll drop it in you in your head if you don't hook it.
But I want a dog I cried.
I won't be argued with shouted Mr. Sherman, now stand clear for when I say three, down goes
the wiper.
Mr. Sherlock Holmes I began.
But the words had a most magical effect.
For the window instantly slammed down, and with a minute the door was unbothered and open.
Mr. Sherman was a lanky, lean old man with stooping shoulders, a stringy neck and a blooty-tinted
glasses.
A friend of Mr. Sherlock is always welcome, said he.
Step in, sir.
Keep clear of the badger for he bites.
Ah, naughty naughty.
Would you take a nip at the gentleman?
Yes, to a stoke which trust its wicked head and red eyes between the bars of a cage.
Don't mind that, sir.
It's only a slow one.
It ain't got no fangs, so I give it the run of the room, for it keeps the beetles down.
You must not mind me being just a little short with you at first, for I'm guided by the
children, and there's many a one just comes down this lane to knock me up.
What was it, Mr. Sherlock Holmes wanted, sir?
He wanted a dog of yours.
Ah, that would be Toby.
Yes, Toby was the name.
Toby lives at number seven on the left here.
Toby lives at number seven on the left.
He moved slowly with his candle, among the queer animal family which had gathered around
him.
In the uncertain, shadowy light, I could see dimly that there were glancing, glimmering
eyes peeping down at us from every cranny and corner.
Even the rafters above our heads were lined by solemn founds who lazily shifted their weight
from one leg to the other as our voices disturbed their slumbers.
Toby proved to be an ugly, long head, lot-peared creature, half-spaniel and half-lurcher, with
a very clumsy, waddling gate.
It accepted after some hesitation a lump of sugar with which the old naturalist handed
to me and, having thus sealed in an alliance, it followed me to the camp and made no difficulties
about accompanying me.
It had just struck three on the palace clock when I found myself back once more at Pondakary
Lodge.
The ex-price fighter, McMurdo, had, I found, been arrested as an accessory, and both he and
Mr. Shulton had been marched off to the station.
Two constables guarded the narrow gate, but they allowed me to pass with a dog on my mentioning
the detective's name.
Holmes was standing on the doorstep with his hands in his pocket smoking his pipe.
"Ah, you have in there," said he.
"Good dog, then?"
Athelny Jones has gone.
We have had an immense display of energy since you left.
He has arrested not only friend Thaddeus, but the gatekeeper, the housekeeper, and the Indian
servant.
We have the place to ourselves.
For a sergeant upstairs, leave the dog here and come up.
We tied Toby to the hall table and reassended the stairs.
The room was, as he had left it, saved that his sheet had been draped over the central
figure.
A weary looking police sergeant reclined in the corner.
"Lend me your bullseye, sergeant," said my companion, "now tie this bit of card around
my neck, so as to hang it in front of me.
Thank you."
Now, I must kick off my boots and stockings.
Just you carry them down with you, Watson.
I am going to do a little climbing and dip my handkerchief into the creasod.
That will do.
Now come up onto the garret with me for a moment.
We clambered up through the hole.
Holmes turned his light once more upon the footsteps in the dust.
"I wish he particularly to notice these footprints," he said.
"Do you observe anything noteworthy about them?"
"They belong," I said, "to a child or a small woman."
"A part from their size, though, is there nothing else?"
"They appear to be much as other foot-parks."
Not at all look here.
This is the print of a right foot in the dust.
Now I make one with my naked foot beside it.
What is the chief difference?"
"Your toes are all cramped together.
The other print has each toe distinctly divided."
"Quite so. That is the point. Bear that in mind. Now.
Would you kindly step over to the flat window and smell the edge of the woodwork?
I shall stay here as I have this handkerchief in my hand."
I did as he directed, and was instantly conscious of a strong, tary smell.
That is where he put his foot in getting out.
If you can trace him, I should think that Tobool have no difficulty.
Now rundown stairs, loose the dog, and look out for blonding.
By the time that I had got out into the grounds, Sherlock Holmes was on the roof, and I
could see him like an enormous glowworm crawling very slowly along the edge.
I lost sight of him behind the stack of chimneys, but he presently reappeared and then vanished
once more upon the open side.
When I made my way around there, I found him seated at one of the corner eaves.
"That you, Watson?" he cried. "Yes. This is the place.
What does that black thing down there?"
"A water barrel?"
"Top on it?"
"Yes."
"No sign of a ladder?"
"No."
"Can't found the fellow. It's a most breakneck place.
I ought to be able to come down where he could climb up.
The water pipe feels pretty firm. Here goes anyhow."
There was a scuffling of feet, and the lantern began to come steadily down the side of the
wall.
Then, with a light spring he came on to the barrel, and from there to the earth.
"It was easy to follow him," he said, drawing up on his stockings and boots.
The walls were loosened the whole way along, and in his hurry he dropped this.
It confirms my diagnostics as your doctor expresses it.
The object which he held up to me was a small pocket or pouch woven out of coloured grasses,
and with a few tawny beads strung around it.
In shape and size, it was not unlike a cigarette case.
A half a dozen spines of dark wood, sharp at one end and rounded at the other.
Like that which had stuck, Bartholomew Shalton.
"They are hellish things," said he, "look out that you don't prick yourself.
I'm delighted to have them. For the chances are that they are all he has."
"There is the less fear of you and me finding one in our skin before long."
I would soon face a martini bullet myself.
"Are the game for a six mile treacher Watson?"
"Certainly I answered. Your leg will stand it. Oh yes."
"Here you are, doggy, good old boy Toby. Smell it. Toby smell it."
He pushed the crease out hankergy thunder the dog's nose.
While the creature stood with its fluffy legs separated, and with an almost comical
cock to its head, like a corner sir sniffing the bouquet of a famous vintage.
Homes, then through the hankergy to a distance, fastened a stout cord to the mongrel's collar,
and led him to the foot of the water barrel.
The creature instantly broke into a succession of high, tremulous yelps, and with his nose
on the ground and his tail in the air pated off upon the trailer to pace, which strained
his leash and kept us at the top of our speed.
The east had been gradually whitening, and we could now see some distance in the cold
grey light.
The square, massive house, with its black empty windows and high bare walls, towered up
sad and full-orned behind us.
Through a course, led right across the grounds, in and out among the trenches and the pits,
which they had been scarred with.
The whole place, with its scattered dirty heaps and ill-grown shrubs, had a hill-blighted
ill-oamened look which harmonised with a black tragedy, which hung over it.
On reaching the boundary wall, Toby ran along, whining eagerly, underneath its shadow.
And stopped finally at a corner screened by a young beach, where there were two walls
joined.
Several bricks had been loosened, and the crevices left were worn down and rounded upon
the lower side, as though they had frequently been used as a ladder.
Holmes clamped up, and taking the dog from me he dropped it over and upon the other side.
As the print of the wooden legs hand he remarked, as I mounted up beside him.
You see the slight smudger blood upon the white plaster.
What a lucky thing is that we've had no very heavy rain since yesterday.
The scent will lie upon the road in spite of over eight and twenty hours start.
I confess that I had my doubts myself when I reflected upon the great traffic which
had passed along the London road in the interval.
My fears were soon appeased however, Toby never hesitated or swerved, but what alled
on in his peculiar rolling fashion?
Clearly, the pungent smell of creasote rose high above all the contending sense.
"Do not imagine," said Holmes, "that I depend for my success in this case upon the mere
chance of one of these fellows having put his foot in the chemical.
I have knowledge now which would enable me to trace them in many different ways.
This however is the radius and, since fortune has put it into our hands, I should be culpable
if I neglected it.
It has, however, prevented the case from becoming the pretty little intellectual problem which
it is at one time promised to be.
There might have been some credit to be gained out of it, but for this too palpable clue.
There is credit and to spare," said I, "I assure you, Holmes, that I marvel at the means
by which you obtain your results in this case.
Even more than I did in the Jefferson Hope murder.
The thing seems to me to be deeper and more inexplicable.
Now, for example, could you describe for such confidence the wooden-legged man?"
"Fuck, my dear boy.
It was simplicity itself.
I don't wish to be theatrical.
But it is all patent and number-board."
Two officers, who were in command of a convict guard, lean an important secret as to bury
treasure.
A map is drawn from them, binding-wishmen named Jonathan Small.
You remember that we saw the name upon the chart and Captain Morston's possession?
He had it signed on behalf of himself and his associates, the sign of the "as he somewhat
dramatically called it."
Aided by this chart, the officers, or one of them, gets the treasure and brings it to England,
leaving, we will suppose, some condition under which he received it, unfulfilled.
"Now, then, why did not Jonathan Small get the treasure himself?"
The obvious answer is, the chart is dated at a time when Morston was brought into close
association with convicts.
Jonathan Small did not get the treasure because he and his associates were themselves convicts
and could not get away.
"But that is mere speculation," said I.
"It is more than that.
It is the only hypothesis which covers the facts, let us see how it fits in with the sequel."
Major Shalton remains at peace for some years, happy in the possession of his treasure.
Then, he receives a letter from India, which gives him a great fright.
What was that?
A letter to say that the men whom he had wronged had been set free.
Or had escaped.
That is much more likely.
But he would have known what their term of imprisonment was.
It would not have been a surprise to him.
What does he do then?
He guards himself against a wooden-legged man, a white man mark you, for he mistakes a
white tradesman for him and actually fires a pistol at him.
Now, only one white man's name is on the chart.
The others are Hindus and Mohamedans.
There is no other white man.
Therefore, we must say with confidence that the wooden-legged man is identical with Jonathan
Small.
Does the reasoning strike you as being faulty?
No, it is clear and concise.
Well, now, let us put ourselves in the place of Jonathan Small.
Let us look at it from his point of view.
He comes to England with a double idea of regaining what he would consider by his rights.
And of having his revenge upon the man who had wronged him.
He found out where Shaltou lived and very possibly he established communications with someone
inside the house.
There is the butler, the whole row, whom we have not met.
Mrs. Bernstein gives him far from a good character.
Small could not find out, however, where the treasure was hid, for no one could ever
knew.
Save the major and one faithful servant who had died.
Suddenly, Small learns that the major is on his deathbed.
In a frenzy, less the secret of the treasure die with him, he runs a gauntlet of the guards,
makes his way to the dying man's window, and is only deterred from entering by the presence
of his two sons.
Mad with hate, however, against the dead man, he enters the room that night.
Such is his private papers in the hope of discovering some memorandum relating to the treasure,
and finally leaves a memento of his visit in the short inscription upon the card.
He had doubtless planned beforehand that should he slay the major, he would leave some such
record upon the body as a sign that it was not a common murder, but from the point of view
of the four associates, something in the nature of an act of justice.
Wimzacal embassar conceits of this kind of common are enough in the annals of crime, and
usually afford valuable indications as to the criminal.
Do you follow all this?
Very clearly.
Now, what could Jonathan Small do?
He could only continue to keep a secret watch upon the efforts made to find the treasure.
Possibly, he leaves England and only comes back at intervals.
Then comes the discovery of the Garrett, and he is instantly informed of it.
We again trace the presence of some confederate in the household.
Jonathan, with his wooden leg, is utterly unable to reach the lofty room of Batholomew
Shultay.
He takes with him, however, a rather curious associate who gets over this difficulty, but
dips his naked foot in the creasod.
Wimzacal comes Toby and a six-mile limp for a half pay officer with a damaged ten-doer
killings.
But it was the associate and not Jonathan who committed the crime.
Quite so.
And rather to Jonathan's disgust, to judge by the way he stamped about when he got into
the room.
He bore no grudge against Batholomew Shultay, and would have preferred it if he could have
simply bound and gagged him.
He did not wish to put his head in the altar.
There was no help for it, however, the savage instincts of his companion had broken out, and
the poison had done its work.
So Jonathan Small left his record, lowered the treasure box to the ground and followed it
himself.
There was the train of events as far as I can decipher them.
Of course, as to his personal appearance, he must be middle-aged and must be sunburned
after serving time in such an oven as the adamans.
His height is readily calculated from the length of his stride, and we know that he is bearded.
His hareness was the one point which impressed itself upon Thaddeus Shulto when he saw him
at the window.
I don't know that there is anything else.
The associate?
Ah, well.
There is no great mystery in that, but you will know all about it soon enough.
How sweet the morning air is.
See how that one little cloud floats like a pink feather with some giant flamingo.
Now, the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London Cloudbank.
It shines on a good many folk, but on none.
I dare bet, who are we on a stranger errand than you and I?
How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great
elemental forces of nature.
Are you well up in your jump hall?
Fairly so.
I worked back to him through Carlisle.
That was like following the brook to the parent late.
He makes one curious but profound remark.
It is that the chief proof of a man's real greatness lies in his perception of his own
smallness.
It argues, you see, a power of comparison and the appreciation with is in itself a proof
of nobility.
There is so much food for thought in Richter.
You have not a pistol, have you?
I have my stick.
It is just possible that we may need something of the sort if we get to their lair.
Jonathan, I shall leave to you, but if the other turns nasty, I shall shoot him dead.
He took out his revolver as he spoke and having loaded two of the chambers, he put it back
into his right hand pocket of his jacket.
We had, during this time, been following the guidance of Toby, down the half-rueral
villa-lined road which led to the metropolis.
Now however, we were beginning to come among the continuous streets where labourers and
dockmen were already a stir and the slattonly women were taking down shutters and brushing
doorsteps.
At the square, topped corner public houses, businesses were just beginning and ruff-looking
men were emerging, rubbing their sleeves across their beards after the morning wet.
And ranged dogs, saunted up and stared, wonderingly as we passed.
But our inimitable Toby looked neither to the right nor to the left, but trotted onwards
with his nose to the ground and an occasional eager wine which spoke of a hot scent.
We had traversed Stratham, Brixton, Canberwell, and now found ourselves in Kennington Lane,
running born away through the side streets to the east of the oval.
The men who we pursued seemed to have taken a curiously zigzag road with the idea probably
of escaping observation.
They had never kept to the main road if a parallel side street would serve their turn.
At the foot of Kennington Lane, they had edged away to the left through Bonn Street and
Mile Street, where the latter streets turned into night's place, Toby ceased to advance,
but began to run backwards and forwards with one ear cocked in the other drooping.
The very picture of Canine in decision.
Then he waddled round in circles, looked up to us from time to time as if to ask for sympathy
in his embarrassment.
What's the juice as a matter with the dog growl homes?
They surely would not take a cab or go off in a balloon.
Perhaps they stood here for some time I suggested.
"Ah, it's alright, he's off again," said my companion in a tone of relief.
He was indeed off, but after sniffing round again he suddenly made up his mind and darted
away with an energy and determination, such as he had not shown yet.
The scent appeared to be much hotter than before.
He had not even put his nose on the ground, but tugged at his leash and tried to break into
a run.
I could see by the clean and home's eyes that he thought we were nearing the end of the
journey.
Of course, now we ran down nine elms until we came to Brodenick and Nelson's large Timberyard,
just past the white eagle to heaven.
Here the dog, frantic with excitement, turned down through the side gate into the
enclosure, where the soys were already at work.
On the dog race, through sawdust and shavings, down and alley, round a passage between two
woodpiles and finally, with a triumphant yelp sprang upon a large barrel which still stood
upon the hand trolley, on which it had been bored.
With lollring tongue and blinking eyes, Toby stood upon the cask, looking from one to
the other for some sign of appreciation.
The staves of the barrel and the wheels of the trolley were smeared with a dark liquid,
and the whole air was heavy with the smell of creosote.
Sherlock homes and I look plankly at each other, then burst simultaneously into uncontrolled
fits of laughter.