In choosing a few typical cases which illustrate the remarkable mental
qualities of my friend, Sherlock Holmes, I have endeavoured, as far as
possible, to select those which presented the minimum of sensationalism, while
offering a fair field for his talents.  It is, however, unfortunately
impossible entirely to separate the sensational from the criminal, and a
chronicler is left in the dilemma that he must either sacrifice details which
are essential to his statement and so give a false impression of the problem,
or he must use matter which chance, and not choice, has provided him with.
With this short preface I shall turn to my notes of what proved to be a
strange, though a peculiarly terrible, chain of events.

It was a blazing hot day in August.  Baker Street was like an oven, and the
glare of the sunlight upon the yellow brickwork of the house across the road
was painful to the eye.  It was hard to believe that these were the same walls
which loomed so gloomily through the fogs of winter.  Our blinds were
half-drawn, and Holmes lay curled upon the sofa, reading and re-reading a
letter which he had received by the morning post.  For myself, my term of
service in India had trained me to stand heat better than cold, and a
thermometer at ninety was no hardship.  But the morning paper was
uninteresting.  Parliament had risen.  Everybody was out of town, and I yearned
for the glades of the New Forest or the shingle of Southsea.  A depleted bank
account had caused me to postpone my holiday, and as to my companion, neither
the country nor the sea presented the slightest attraction to him.  He loved to
lie in the very center of five millions of people, with his filaments
stretching out and running through them, responsive to every little rumour or
suspicion of unsolved crime.  Appreciation of nature found no place among his
many gifts, and his only change was when he turned his mind from the evil-doer
of the town to track down his brother of the country.

Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for conversation I had tossed aside the
barren paper, and leaning back in my chair I fell into a brown study.  Suddenly
my companion’s voice broke in upon my thoughts:

“You are right, Watson,” said he.  “It does seem a most preposterous way of
settling a dispute.”

“Most preposterous!” I exclaimed, and then suddenly realizing how he had echoed
the inmost thought of my soul, I sat up in my chair and stared at him in blank
amazement.

“What is this, Holmes?” I cried.  “This is beyond anything which I could have
imagined.”

He laughed heartily at my perplexity.

“You remember,” said he, “that some little time ago when I read you the passage
in one of Poe’s sketches in which a close reasoner follows the unspoken
thoughts of his companion, you were inclined to treat the matter as a mere
tour-de-force of the author.  On my remarking that I was constantly in the
habit of doing the same thing you expressed incredulity.”

“Oh, no!”

“Perhaps not with your tongue, my dear Watson, but certainly with your
eyebrows.  So when I saw you throw down your paper and enter upon a train of
thought, I was very happy to have the opportunity of reading it off, and
eventually of breaking into it, as a proof that I had been in rapport with
you.”

But I was still far from satisfied.  “In the example which you read to me,”
said I, “the reasoner drew his conclusions from the actions of the man whom he
observed.  If I remember right, he stumbled over a heap of stones, looked up at
the stars, and so on.  But I have been seated quietly in my chair, and what
clues can I have given you?”

“You do yourself an injustice.  The features are given to man as the means by
which he shall express his emotions, and yours are faithful servants.”

“Do you mean to say that you read my train of thoughts from my features?”

“Your features and especially your eyes.  Perhaps you cannot yourself recall
how your reverie commenced?”

“No, I cannot.”

“Then I will tell you.  After throwing down your paper, which was the action
which drew my attention to you, you sat for half a minute with a vacant
expression.  Then your eyes fixed themselves upon your newly framed picture of
General Gordon, and I saw by the alteration in your face that a train of
thought had been started.  But it did not lead very far.  Your eyes flashed
across to the unframed portrait of Henry Ward Beecher which stands upon the top
of your books.  Then you glanced up at the wall, and of course your meaning was
obvious.  You were thinking that if the portrait were framed it would just
cover that bare space and correspond with Gordon’s picture there.”

“You have followed me wonderfully!” I exclaimed.

“So far I could hardly have gone astray.  But now your thoughts went back to
Beecher, and you looked hard across as if you were studying the character in
his features.  Then your eyes ceased to pucker, but you continued to look
across, and your face was thoughtful.  You were recalling the incidents of
Beecher’s career.  I was well aware that you could not do this without thinking
of the mission which he undertook on behalf of the North at the time of the
Civil War, for I remember your expressing your passionate indignation at the
way in which he was received by the more turbulent of our people.  You felt so
strongly about it that I knew you could not think of Beecher without thinking
of that also.  When a moment later I saw your eyes wander away from the
picture, I suspected that your mind had now turned to the Civil War, and when I
observed that your lips set, your eyes sparkled, and your hands clenched I was
positive that you were indeed thinking of the gallantry which was shown by both
sides in that desperate struggle.  But then, again, your face grew sadder, you
shook your head.  You were dwelling upon the sadness and horror and useless
waste of life.  Your hand stole towards your own old wound and a smile quivered
on your lips, which showed me that the ridiculous side of this method of
settling international questions had forced itself upon your mind.  At this
point I agreed with you that it was preposterous and was glad to find that all
my deductions had been correct.”

“Absolutely!” said I.  “And now that you have explained it, I confess that I am
as amazed as before.”

“It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I assure you.  I should not have
intruded it upon your attention had you not shown some incredulity the other
day.  But I have in my hands here a little problem which may prove to be more
difficult of solution than my small essay in thought reading.  Have you
observed in the paper a short paragraph referring to the remarkable contents of
a packet sent through the post to Miss Cushing, of Cross Street, Croydon?”

“No, I saw nothing.”

“Ah! then you must have overlooked it.  Just toss it over to me.  Here it is,
under the financial column.  Perhaps you would be good enough to read it
aloud.”

I picked up the paper which he had thrown back to me and read the paragraph
indicated.  It was headed, “A Gruesome Packet.”

“Miss Susan Cushing, living at Cross Street, Croydon, has been made the victim
of what must be regarded as a peculiarly revolting practical joke unless some
more sinister meaning should prove to be attached to the incident.  At two
o’clock yesterday afternoon a small packet, wrapped in brown paper, was handed
in by the postman.  A cardboard box was inside, which was filled with coarse
salt.  On emptying this, Miss Cushing was horrified to find two human ears,
apparently quite freshly severed.  The box had been sent by parcel post from
Belfast upon the morning before.  There is no indication as to the sender, and
the matter is the more mysterious as Miss Cushing, who is a maiden lady of
fifty, has led a most retired life, and has so few acquaintances or
correspondents that it is a rare event for her to receive anything through the
post.  Some years ago, however, when she resided at Penge, she let apartments
in her house to three young medical students, whom she was obliged to get rid
of on account of their noisy and irregular habits.  The police are of opinion
that this outrage may have been perpetrated upon Miss Cushing by these youths,
who owed her a grudge and who hoped to frighten her by sending her these relics
of the dissecting-rooms.  Some probability is lent to the theory by the fact
that one of these students came from the north of Ireland, and, to the best of
Miss Cushing’s belief, from Belfast.  In the meantime, the matter is being
actively investigated, Mr. Lestrade, one of the very smartest of our detective
officers, being in charge of the case.”

“So much for the Daily Chronicle,” said Holmes as I finished reading.  “Now for
our friend Lestrade.  I had a note from him this morning, in which he says:

“I think that this case is very much in your line.  We have every hope of
clearing the matter up, but we find a little difficulty in getting anything to
work upon.  We have, of course, wired to the Belfast post-office, but a large
number of parcels were handed in upon that day, and they have no means of
identifying this particular one, or of remembering the sender.  The box is a
half-pound box of honeydew tobacco and does not help us in any way.  The
medical student theory still appears to me to be the most feasible, but if you
should have a few hours to spare I should be very happy to see you out here.  I
shall be either at the house or in the police-station all day.

“What say you, Watson?  Can you rise superior to the heat and run down to
Croydon with me on the off chance of a case for your annals?”

“I was longing for something to do.”

“You shall have it then.  Ring for our boots and tell them to order a cab.
I’ll be back in a moment when I have changed my dressing-gown and filled my
cigar-case.”

A shower of rain fell while we were in the train, and the heat was far less
oppressive in Croydon than in town.  Holmes had sent on a wire, so that
Lestrade, as wiry, as dapper, and as ferret-like as ever, was waiting for us at
the station.  A walk of five minutes took us to Cross Street, where Miss
Cushing resided.

It was a very long street of two-story brick houses, neat and prim, with
whitened stone steps and little groups of aproned women gossiping at the doors.
Halfway down, Lestrade stopped and tapped at a door, which was opened by a
small servant girl.  Miss Cushing was sitting in the front room, into which we
were ushered.  She was a placid-faced woman, with large, gentle eyes, and
grizzled hair curving down over her temples on each side.  A worked
antimacassar lay upon her lap and a basket of coloured silks stood upon a stool
beside her.

“They are in the outhouse, those dreadful things,” said she as Lestrade
entered.  “I wish that you would take them away altogether.”

“So I shall, Miss Cushing.  I only kept them here until my friend, Mr. Holmes,
should have seen them in your presence.”

“Why in my presence, sir?”

“In case he wished to ask any questions.”

“What is the use of asking me questions when I tell you I know nothing whatever
about it?”

“Quite so, madam,” said Holmes in his soothing way.  “I have no doubt that you
have been annoyed more than enough already over this business.”

“Indeed I have, sir.  I am a quiet woman and live a retired life.  It is
something new for me to see my name in the papers and to find the police in my
house.  I won’t have those things in here, Mr. Lestrade.  If you wish to see
them you must go to the outhouse.”

It was a small shed in the narrow garden which ran behind the house.  Lestrade
went in and brought out a yellow cardboard box, with a piece of brown paper and
some string.  There was a bench at the end of the path, and we all sat down
while Homes examined one by one, the articles which Lestrade had handed to him.

“The string is exceedingly interesting,” he remarked, holding it up to the
light and sniffing at it.  “What do you make of this string, Lestrade?”

“It has been tarred.”

“Precisely.  It is a piece of tarred twine.  You have also, no doubt, remarked
that Miss Cushing has cut the cord with a scissors, as can be seen by the
double fray on each side.  This is of importance.”

“I cannot see the importance,” said Lestrade.

“The importance lies in the fact that the knot is left intact, and that this
knot is of a peculiar character.”

“It is very neatly tied.  I had already made a note of that effect,” said
Lestrade complacently.

“So much for the string, then,” said Holmes, smiling, “now for the box wrapper.
Brown paper, with a distinct smell of coffee.  What, did you not observe it?  I
think there can be no doubt of it.  Address printed in rather straggling
characters: ‘Miss S. Cushing, Cross Street, Croydon.’ Done with a broad-pointed
pen, probably a J, and with very inferior ink.  The word ‘Croydon’ has been
originally spelled with an ‘i’, which has been changed to ‘y’.  The parcel was
directed, then, by a man—the printing is distinctly masculine—of limited
education and unacquainted with the town of Croydon.  So far, so good!  The box
is a yellow, half-pound honeydew box, with nothing distinctive save two thumb
marks at the left bottom corner.  It is filled with rough salt of the quality
used for preserving hides and other of the coarser commercial purposes.  And
embedded in it are these very singular enclosures.”

He took out the two ears as he spoke, and laying a board across his knee he
examined them minutely, while Lestrade and I, bending forward on each side of
him, glanced alternately at these dreadful relics and at the thoughtful, eager
face of our companion.  Finally he returned them to the box once more and sat
for a while in deep meditation.

“You have observed, of course,” said he at last, “that the ears are not a
pair.”

“Yes, I have noticed that.  But if this were the practical joke of some
students from the dissecting-rooms, it would be as easy for them to send two
odd ears as a pair.”

“Precisely.  But this is not a practical joke.”

“You are sure of it?”

“The presumption is strongly against it.  Bodies in the dissecting-rooms are
injected with preservative fluid.  These ears bear no signs of this.  They are
fresh, too.  They have been cut off with a blunt instrument, which would hardly
happen if a student had done it.  Again, carbolic or rectified spirits would be
the preservatives which would suggest themselves to the medical mind, certainly
not rough salt.  I repeat that there is no practical joke here, but that we are
investigating a serious crime.”

A vague thrill ran through me as I listened to my companion’s words and saw the
stern gravity which had hardened his features.  This brutal preliminary seemed
to shadow forth some strange and inexplicable horror in the background.
Lestrade, however, shook his head like a man who is only half convinced.

“There are objections to the joke theory, no doubt,” said he, “but there are
much stronger reasons against the other.  We know that this woman has led a
most quiet and respectable life at Penge and here for the last twenty years.
She has hardly been away from her home for a day during that time.  Why on
earth, then, should any criminal send her the proofs of his guilt, especially
as, unless she is a most consummate actress, she understands quite as little of
the matter as we do?”

“That is the problem which we have to solve,” Holmes answered, “and for my part
I shall set about it by presuming that my reasoning is correct, and that a
double murder has been committed.  One of these ears is a woman’s, small,
finely formed, and pierced for an earring.  The other is a man’s, sun-burned,
discoloured, and also pierced for an earring.  These two people are presumably
dead, or we should have heard their story before now.  To-day is Friday.  The
packet was posted on Thursday morning.  The tragedy, then, occurred on
Wednesday or Tuesday, or earlier.  If the two people were murdered, who but
their murderer would have sent this sign of his work to Miss Cushing?  We may
take it that the sender of the packet is the man whom we want.  But he must
have some strong reason for sending Miss Cushing this packet.  What reason
then?  It must have been to tell her that the deed was done! or to pain her,
perhaps.  But in that case she knows who it is.  Does she know?  I doubt it.
If she knew, why should she call the police in?  She might have buried the
ears, and no one would have been the wiser.  That is what she would have done
if she had wished to shield the criminal.  But if she does not wish to shield
him she would give his name.  There is a tangle here which needs straightening
out.”  He had been talking in a high, quick voice, staring blankly up over the
garden fence, but now he sprang briskly to his feet and walked towards the
house.

“I have a few questions to ask Miss Cushing,” said he.

“In that case I may leave you here,” said Lestrade, “for I have another small
business on hand.  I think that I have nothing further to learn from Miss
Cushing.  You will find me at the police-station.”

“We shall look in on our way to the train,” answered Holmes.  A moment later he
and I were back in the front room, where the impassive lady was still quietly
working away at her antimacassar.  She put it down on her lap as we entered and
looked at us with her frank, searching blue eyes.

“I am convinced, sir,” she said, “that this matter is a mistake, and that the
parcel was never meant for me at all.  I have said this several times to the
gentlemen from Scotland Yard, but he simply laughs at me.  I have not an enemy
in the world, as far as I know, so why should anyone play me such a trick?”

“I am coming to be of the same opinion, Miss Cushing,” said Holmes, taking a
seat beside her.  “I think that it is more than probable—” He paused, and I was
surprised, on glancing round to see that he was staring with singular
intentness at the lady’s profile.  Surprise and satisfaction were both for an
instant to be read upon his eager face, though when she glanced round to find
out the cause of his silence he had become as demure as ever.  I stared hard
myself at her flat, grizzled hair, her trim cap, her little gilt earrings, her
placid features; but I could see nothing which could account for my companion’s
evident excitement.

“There were one or two questions—”

“Oh, I am weary of questions!” cried Miss Cushing impatiently.

“You have two sisters, I believe.”

“How could you know that?”

“I observed the very instant that I entered the room that you have a portrait
group of three ladies upon the mantelpiece, one of whom is undoubtedly
yourself, while the others are so exceedingly like you that there could be no
doubt of the relationship.”

“Yes, you are quite right.  Those are my sisters, Sarah and Mary.”

“And here at my elbow is another portrait, taken at Liverpool, of your younger
sister, in the company of a man who appears to be a steward by his uniform.  I
observe that she was unmarried at the time.”

“You are very quick at observing.”

“That is my trade.”

“Well, you are quite right.  But she was married to Mr. Browner a few days
afterwards.  He was on the South American line when that was taken, but he was
so fond of her that he couldn’t abide to leave her for so long, and he got into
the Liverpool and London boats.”

“Ah, the Conqueror, perhaps?”

“No, the May Day, when last I heard.  Jim came down here to see me once.  That
was before he broke the pledge; but afterwards he would always take drink when
he was ashore, and a little drink would send him stark, staring mad.  Ah! it
was a bad day that ever he took a glass in his hand again.  First he dropped
me, then he quarrelled with Sarah, and now that Mary has stopped writing we
don’t know how things are going with them.”

It was evident that Miss Cushing had come upon a subject on which she felt very
deeply.  Like most people who lead a lonely life, she was shy at first, but
ended by becoming extremely communicative.  She told us many details about her
brother-in-law the steward, and then wandering off on the subject of her former
lodgers, the medical students, she gave us a long account of their
delinquencies, with their names and those of their hospitals.  Holmes listened
attentively to everything, throwing in a question from time to time.

“About your second sister, Sarah,” said he.  “I wonder, since you are both
maiden ladies, that you do not keep house together.”

“Ah! you don’t know Sarah’s temper or you would wonder no more.  I tried it
when I came to Croydon, and we kept on until about two months ago, when we had
to part.  I don’t want to say a word against my own sister, but she was always
meddlesome and hard to please, was Sarah.”

“You say that she quarrelled with your Liverpool relations.”

“Yes, and they were the best of friends at one time.  Why, she went up there to
live in order to be near them.  And now she has no word hard enough for Jim
Browner.  The last six months that she was here she would speak of nothing but
his drinking and his ways.  He had caught her meddling, I suspect, and given
her a bit of his mind, and that was the start of it.”

“Thank you, Miss Cushing,” said Holmes, rising and bowing.  “Your sister Sarah
lives, I think you said, at New Street, Wallington?  Good-bye, and I am very
sorry that you should have been troubled over a case with which, as you say,
you have nothing whatever to do.”

There was a cab passing as we came out, and Holmes hailed it.

“How far to Wallington?” he asked.

“Only about a mile, sir.”

“Very good.  Jump in, Watson.  We must strike while the iron is hot.  Simple as
the case is, there have been one or two very instructive details in connection
with it.  Just pull up at a telegraph office as you pass, cabby.”

Holmes sent off a short wire and for the rest of the drive lay back in the cab,
with his hat tilted over his nose to keep the sun from his face.  Our drive
pulled up at a house which was not unlike the one which we had just quitted.
My companion ordered him to wait, and had his hand upon the knocker, when the
door opened and a grave young gentleman in black, with a very shiny hat,
appeared on the step.

“Is Miss Cushing at home?” asked Holmes.

“Miss Sarah Cushing is extremely ill,” said he.  “She has been suffering since
yesterday from brain symptoms of great severity.  As her medical adviser, I
cannot possibly take the responsibility of allowing anyone to see her.  I
should recommend you to call again in ten days.”  He drew on his gloves, closed
the door, and marched off down the street.

“Well, if we can’t we can’t,” said Holmes, cheerfully.

“Perhaps she could not or would not have told you much.”

“I did not wish her to tell me anything.  I only wanted to look at her.
However, I think that I have got all that I want.  Drive us to some decent
hotel, cabby, where we may have some lunch, and afterwards we shall drop down
upon friend Lestrade at the police-station.”

We had a pleasant little meal together, during which Holmes would talk about
nothing but violins, narrating with great exultation how he had purchased his
own Stradivarius, which was worth at least five hundred guineas, at a Jew
broker’s in Tottenham Court Road for fifty-five shillings.  This led him to
Paganini, and we sat for an hour over a bottle of claret while he told me
anecdote after anecdote of that extraordinary man.  The afternoon was far
advanced and the hot glare had softened into a mellow glow before we found
ourselves at the police-station.  Lestrade was waiting for us at the door.

“A telegram for you, Mr. Holmes,” said he.

“Ha!  It is the answer!”  He tore it open, glanced his eyes over it, and
crumpled it into his pocket.  “That’s all right,” said he.

“Have you found out anything?”

“I have found out everything!”

“What!”  Lestrade stared at him in amazement.  “You are joking.”

“I was never more serious in my life.  A shocking crime has been committed, and
I think I have now laid bare every detail of it.”

“And the criminal?”

Holmes scribbled a few words upon the back of one of his visiting cards and
threw it over to Lestrade.

“That is the name,” he said.  “You cannot effect an arrest until to-morrow
night at the earliest.  I should prefer that you do not mention my name at all
in connection with the case, as I choose to be only associated with those
crimes which present some difficulty in their solution.  Come on, Watson.”  We
strode off together to the station, leaving Lestrade still staring with a
delighted face at the card which Holmes had thrown him.

“The case,” said Sherlock Holmes as we chatted over our cigars that night in
our rooms at Baker Street, “is one where, as in the investigations which you
have chronicled under the names of ‘A Study in Scarlet’ and of ‘The Sign of
Four,’ we have been compelled to reason backward from effects to causes.  I
have written to Lestrade asking him to supply us with the details which are now
wanting, and which he will only get after he had secured his man.  That he may
be safely trusted to do, for although he is absolutely devoid of reason, he is
as tenacious as a bulldog when he once understands what he has to do, and
indeed, it is just this tenacity which has brought him to the top at Scotland
Yard.”

“Your case is not complete, then?” I asked.

“It is fairly complete in essentials.  We know who the author of the revolting
business is, although one of the victims still escapes us.  Of course, you have
formed your own conclusions.”

“I presume that this Jim Browner, the steward of a Liverpool boat, is the man
whom you suspect?”

“Oh! it is more than a suspicion.”

“And yet I cannot see anything save very vague indications.”

“On the contrary, to my mind nothing could be more clear.  Let me run over the
principal steps.  We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely
blank mind, which is always an advantage.  We had formed no theories.  We were
simply there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations.  What did
we see first?  A very placid and respectable lady, who seemed quite innocent of
any secret, and a portrait which showed me that she had two younger sisters.
It instantly flashed across my mind that the box might have been meant for one
of these.  I set the idea aside as one which could be disproved or confirmed at
our leisure.  Then we went to the garden, as you remember, and we saw the very
singular contents of the little yellow box.

“The string was of the quality which is used by sail-makers aboard ship, and at
once a whiff of the sea was perceptible in our investigation.  When I observed
that the knot was one which is popular with sailors, that the parcel had been
posted at a port, and that the male ear was pierced for an earring which is so
much more common among sailors than landsmen, I was quite certain that all the
actors in the tragedy were to be found among our seafaring classes.

“When I came to examine the address of the packet I observed that it was to
Miss S. Cushing.  Now, the oldest sister would, of course, be Miss Cushing, and
although her initial was ‘S’ it might belong to one of the others as well.  In
that case we should have to commence our investigation from a fresh basis
altogether.  I therefore went into the house with the intention of clearing up
this point.  I was about to assure Miss Cushing that I was convinced that a
mistake had been made when you may remember that I came suddenly to a stop.
The fact was that I had just seen something which filled me with surprise and
at the same time narrowed the field of our inquiry immensely.

“As a medical man, you are aware, Watson, that there is no part of the body
which varies so much as the human ear.  Each ear is as a rule quite distinctive
and differs from all other ones.  In last year’s Anthropological Journal you
will find two short monographs from my pen upon the subject.  I had, therefore,
examined the ears in the box with the eyes of an expert and had carefully noted
their anatomical peculiarities.  Imagine my surprise, then, when on looking at
Miss Cushing I perceived that her ear corresponded exactly with the female ear
which I had just inspected.  The matter was entirely beyond coincidence.  There
was the same shortening of the pinna, the same broad curve of the upper lobe,
the same convolution of the inner cartilage.  In all essentials it was the same
ear.

“In the first place, her sister’s name was Sarah, and her address had until
recently been the same, so that it was quite obvious how the mistake had
occurred and for whom the packet was meant.  Then we heard of this steward,
married to the third sister, and learned that he had at one time been so
intimate with Miss Sarah that she had actually gone up to Liverpool to be near
the Browners, but a quarrel had afterwards divided them.  This quarrel had put
a stop to all communications for some months, so that if Browner had occasion
to address a packet to Miss Sarah, he would undoubtedly have done so to her old
address.

“And now the matter had begun to straighten itself out wonderfully.  We had
learned of the existence of this steward, an impulsive man, of strong
passions—you remember that he threw up what must have been a very superior
berth in order to be nearer to his wife—subject, too, to occasional fits of
hard drinking.  We had reason to believe that his wife had been murdered, and
that a man—presumably a seafaring man—had been murdered at the same time.
Jealousy, of course, at once suggests itself as the motive for the crime.  And
why should these proofs of the deed be sent to Miss Sarah Cushing?  Probably
because during her residence in Liverpool she had some hand in bringing about
the events which led to the tragedy.  You will observe that this line of boats
call at Belfast, Dublin, and Waterford; so that, presuming that Browner had
committed the deed and had embarked at once upon his steamer, the May Day,
Belfast would be the first place at which he could post his terrible packet.

“A second solution was at this stage obviously possible, and although I thought
it exceedingly unlikely, I was determined to elucidate it before going further.
An unsuccessful lover might have killed Mr. and Mrs. Browner, and the male ear
might have belonged to the husband.  There were many grave objections to this
theory, but it was conceivable.  I therefore sent off a telegram to my friend
Algar, of the Liverpool force, and asked him to find out if Mrs. Browner were
at home, and if Browner had departed in the May Day.  Then we went on to
Wallington to visit Miss Sarah.

“I was curious, in the first place, to see how far the family ear had been
reproduced in her.  Then, of course, she might give us very important
information, but I was not sanguine that she would.  She must have heard of the
business the day before, since all Croydon was ringing with it, and she alone
could have understood for whom the packet was meant.  If she had been willing
to help justice she would probably have communicated with the police already.
However, it was clearly our duty to see her, so we went.  We found that the
news of the arrival of the packet—for her illness dated from that time—had such
an effect upon her as to bring on brain fever.  It was clearer than ever that
she understood its full significance, but equally clear that we should have to
wait some time for any assistance from her.

“However, we were really independent of her help.  Our answers were waiting for
us at the police-station, where I had directed Algar to send them.  Nothing
could be more conclusive.  Mrs. Browner’s house had been closed for more than
three days, and the neighbours were of opinion that she had gone south to see
her relatives.  It had been ascertained at the shipping offices that Browner
had left aboard of the May Day, and I calculate that she is due in the Thames
tomorrow night.  When he arrives he will be met by the obtuse but resolute
Lestrade, and I have no doubt that we shall have all our details filled in.”

Sherlock Holmes was not disappointed in his expectations.  Two days later he
received a bulky envelope, which contained a short note from the detective, and
a typewritten document, which covered several pages of foolscap.

“Lestrade has got him all right,” said Holmes, glancing up at me.  “Perhaps it
would interest you to hear what he says.

“My dear Mr. Holmes:

In accordance with the scheme which we had formed in order to test our
theories” [“the ‘we’ is rather fine, Watson, is it not?”] “I went down to the
Albert Dock yesterday at 6 p.m., and boarded the S.S. May Day, belonging to the
Liverpool, Dublin, and London Steam Packet Company.  On inquiry, I found that
there was a steward on board of the name of James Browner and that he had acted
during the voyage in such an extraordinary manner that the captain had been
compelled to relieve him of his duties.  On descending to his berth, I found
him seated upon a chest with his head sunk upon his hands, rocking himself to
and fro.  He is a big, powerful chap, clean-shaven, and very swarthy—something
like Aldrige, who helped us in the bogus laundry affair.  He jumped up when he
heard my business, and I had my whistle to my lips to call a couple of river
police, who were round the corner, but he seemed to have no heart in him, and
he held out his hands quietly enough for the darbies.  We brought him along to
the cells, and his box as well, for we thought there might be something
incriminating; but, bar a big sharp knife such as most sailors have, we got
nothing for our trouble.  However, we find that we shall want no more evidence,
for on being brought before the inspector at the station he asked leave to make
a statement, which was, of course, taken down, just as he made it, by our
shorthand man.  We had three copies typewritten, one of which I enclose.  The
affair proves, as I always thought it would, to be an extremely simple one, but
I am obliged to you for assisting me in my investigation.  With kind regards,

“Yours very truly, “G. Lestrade.

“Hum!  The investigation really was a very simple one,” remarked Holmes, “but I
don’t think it struck him in that light when he first called us in.  However,
let us see what Jim Browner has to say for himself.  This is his statement as
made before Inspector Montgomery at the Shadwell Police Station, and it has the
advantage of being verbatim.”

“‘Have I anything to say?  Yes, I have a deal to say.  I have to make a clean
breast of it all.  You can hang me, or you can leave me alone.  I don’t care a
plug which you do.  I tell you I’ve not shut an eye in sleep since I did it,
and I don’t believe I ever will again until I get past all waking.  Sometimes
it’s his face, but most generally it’s hers.  I’m never without one or the
other before me.  He looks frowning and black-like, but she has a kind o’
surprise upon her face.  Ay, the white lamb, she might well be surprised when
she read death on a face that had seldom looked anything but love upon her
before.

“‘But it was Sarah’s fault, and may the curse of a broken man put a blight on
her and set the blood rotting in her veins!  It’s not that I want to clear
myself.  I know that I went back to drink, like the beast that I was.  But she
would have forgiven me; she would have stuck as close to me as a rope to a
block if that woman had never darkened our door.  For Sarah Cushing loved
me—that’s the root of the business—she loved me until all her love turned to
poisonous hate when she knew that I thought more of my wife’s footmark in the
mud than I did of her whole body and soul.

“‘There were three sisters altogether.  The old one was just a good woman, the
second was a devil, and the third was an angel.  Sarah was thirty-three, and
Mary was twenty-nine when I married.  We were just as happy as the day was long
when we set up house together, and in all Liverpool there was no better woman
than my Mary.  And then we asked Sarah up for a week, and the week grew into a
month, and one thing led to another, until she was just one of ourselves.

“‘I was blue ribbon at that time, and we were putting a little money by, and
all was as bright as a new dollar.  My God, whoever would have thought that it
could have come to this?  Whoever would have dreamed it?

“‘I used to be home for the week-ends very often, and sometimes if the ship
were held back for cargo I would have a whole week at a time, and in this way I
saw a deal of my sister-in-law, Sarah.  She was a fine tall woman, black and
quick and fierce, with a proud way of carrying her head, and a glint from her
eye like a spark from a flint.  But when little Mary was there I had never a
thought of her, and that I swear as I hope for God’s mercy.

“‘It had seemed to me sometimes that she liked to be alone with me, or to coax
me out for a walk with her, but I had never thought anything of that.  But one
evening my eyes were opened.  I had come up from the ship and found my wife
out, but Sarah at home.  “Where’s Mary?” I asked.  “Oh, she has gone to pay
some accounts.”  I was impatient and paced up and down the room.  “Can’t you be
happy for five minutes without Mary, Jim?” says she.  “It’s a bad compliment to
me that you can’t be contented with my society for so short a time.”  “That’s
all right, my lass,” said I, putting out my hand towards her in a kindly way,
but she had it in both hers in an instant, and they burned as if they were in a
fever.  I looked into her eyes and I read it all there.  There was no need for
her to speak, nor for me either.  I frowned and drew my hand away.  Then she
stood by my side in silence for a bit, and then put up her hand and patted me
on the shoulder.  “Steady old Jim!” said she, and with a kind o’ mocking laugh,
she ran out of the room.

“‘Well, from that time Sarah hated me with her whole heart and soul, and she is
a woman who can hate, too.  I was a fool to let her go on biding with us—a
besotted fool—but I never said a word to Mary, for I knew it would grieve her.
Things went on much as before, but after a time I began to find that there was
a bit of a change in Mary herself.  She had always been so trusting and so
innocent, but now she became queer and suspicious, wanting to know where I had
been and what I had been doing, and whom my letters were from, and what I had
in my pockets, and a thousand such follies.  Day by day she grew queerer and
more irritable, and we had ceaseless rows about nothing.  I was fairly puzzled
by it all.  Sarah avoided me now, but she and Mary were just inseparable.  I
can see now how she was plotting and scheming and poisoning my wife’s mind
against me, but I was such a blind beetle that I could not understand it at the
time.  Then I broke my blue ribbon and began to drink again, but I think I
should not have done it if Mary had been the same as ever.  She had some reason
to be disgusted with me now, and the gap between us began to be wider and
wider.  And then this Alec Fairbairn chipped in, and things became a thousand
times blacker.

“‘It was to see Sarah that he came to my house first, but soon it was to see
us, for he was a man with winning ways, and he made friends wherever he went.
He was a dashing, swaggering chap, smart and curled, who had seen half the
world and could talk of what he had seen.  He was good company, I won’t deny
it, and he had wonderful polite ways with him for a sailor man, so that I think
there must have been a time when he knew more of the poop than the forecastle.
For a month he was in and out of my house, and never once did it cross my mind
that harm might come of his soft, tricky ways.  And then at last something made
me suspect, and from that day my peace was gone forever.

“‘It was only a little thing, too.  I had come into the parlour unexpected, and
as I walked in at the door I saw a light of welcome on my wife’s face.  But as
she saw who it was it faded again, and she turned away with a look of
disappointment.  That was enough for me.  There was no one but Alec Fairbairn
whose step she could have mistaken for mine.  If I could have seen him then I
should have killed him, for I have always been like a madman when my temper
gets loose.  Mary saw the devil’s light in my eyes, and she ran forward with
her hands on my sleeve.  “Don’t, Jim, don’t!” says she.  “Where’s Sarah?” I
asked.  “In the kitchen,” says she.  “Sarah,” says I as I went in, “this man
Fairbairn is never to darken my door again.”  “Why not?” says she.  “Because I
order it.”  “Oh!” says she, “if my friends are not good enough for this house,
then I am not good enough for it either.”  “You can do what you like,” says I,
“but if Fairbairn shows his face here again I’ll send you one of his ears for a
keepsake.”  She was frightened by my face, I think, for she never answered a
word, and the same evening she left my house.

“‘Well, I don’t know now whether it was pure devilry on the part of this woman,
or whether she thought that she could turn me against my wife by encouraging
her to misbehave.  Anyway, she took a house just two streets off and let
lodgings to sailors.  Fairbairn used to stay there, and Mary would go round to
have tea with her sister and him.  How often she went I don’t know, but I
followed her one day, and as I broke in at the door Fairbairn got away over the
back garden wall, like the cowardly skunk that he was.  I swore to my wife that
I would kill her if I found her in his company again, and I led her back with
me, sobbing and trembling, and as white as a piece of paper.  There was no
trace of love between us any longer.  I could see that she hated me and feared
me, and when the thought of it drove me to drink, then she despised me as well.

“‘Well, Sarah found that she could not make a living in Liverpool, so she went
back, as I understand, to live with her sister in Croydon, and things jogged on
much the same as ever at home.  And then came this week and all the misery and
ruin.

“’It was in this way.  We had gone on the May Day for a round voyage of seven
days, but a hogshead got loose and started one of our plates, so that we had to
put back into port for twelve hours.  I left the ship and came home, thinking
what a surprise it would be for my wife, and hoping that maybe she would be
glad to see me so soon.  The thought was in my head as I turned into my own
street, and at that moment a cab passed me, and there she was, sitting by the
side of Fairbairn, the two chatting and laughing, with never a thought for me
as I stood watching them from the footpath.

“‘I tell you, and I give you my word for it, that from that moment I was not my
own master, and it is all like a dim dream when I look back on it.  I had been
drinking hard of late, and the two things together fairly turned my brain.
There’s something throbbing in my head now, like a docker’s hammer, but that
morning I seemed to have all Niagara whizzing and buzzing in my ears.

“’Well, I took to my heels, and I ran after the cab.  I had a heavy oak stick
in my hand, and I tell you I saw red from the first; but as I ran I got
cunning, too, and hung back a little to see them without being seen.  They
pulled up soon at the railway station.  There was a good crowd round the
booking-office, so I got quite close to them without being seen.  They took
tickets for New Brighton.  So did I, but I got in three carriages behind them.
When we reached it they walked along the Parade, and I was never more than a
hundred yards from them.  At last I saw them hire a boat and start for a row,
for it was a very hot day, and they thought, no doubt, that it would be cooler
on the water.

“‘It was just as if they had been given into my hands.  There was a bit of a
haze, and you could not see more than a few hundred yards.  I hired a boat for
myself, and I pulled after them.  I could see the blur of their craft, but they
were going nearly as fast as I, and they must have been a long mile from the
shore before I caught them up.  The haze was like a curtain all round us, and
there were we three in the middle of it.  My God, shall I ever forget their
faces when they saw who was in the boat that was closing in upon them?  She
screamed out.  He swore like a madman and jabbed at me with an oar, for he must
have seen death in my eyes.  I got past it and got one in with my stick that
crushed his head like an egg.  I would have spared her, perhaps, for all my
madness, but she threw her arms round him, crying out to him, and calling him
“Alec.”  I struck again, and she lay stretched beside him.  I was like a wild
beast then that had tasted blood.  If Sarah had been there, by the Lord, she
should have joined them.  I pulled out my knife, and—well, there!  I’ve said
enough.  It gave me a kind of savage joy when I thought how Sarah would feel
when she had such signs as these of what her meddling had brought about.  Then
I tied the bodies into the boat, stove a plank, and stood by until they had
sunk.  I knew very well that the owner would think that they had lost their
bearings in the haze, and had drifted off out to sea.  I cleaned myself up, got
back to land, and joined my ship without a soul having a suspicion of what had
passed.  That night I made up the packet for Sarah Cushing, and next day I sent
it from Belfast.

“‘There you have the whole truth of it.  You can hang me, or do what you like
with me, but you cannot punish me as I have been punished already.  I cannot
shut my eyes but I see those two faces staring at me—staring at me as they
stared when my boat broke through the haze.  I killed them quick, but they are
killing me slow; and if I have another night of it I shall be either mad or
dead before morning.  You won’t put me alone into a cell, sir?  For pity’s sake
don’t, and may you be treated in your day of agony as you treat me now.’

“What is the meaning of it, Watson?” said Holmes solemnly as he laid down the
paper.  “What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear?
It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is
unthinkable.  But what end?  There is the great standing perennial problem to
which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.”

“Well, Mrs. Warren, I cannot see that you have any particular cause for
uneasiness, nor do I understand why I, whose time is of some value, should
interfere in the matter.  I really have other things to engage me.”  So spoke
Sherlock Holmes and turned back to the great scrapbook in which he was
arranging and indexing some of his recent material.

But the landlady had the pertinacity and also the cunning of her sex.  She held
her ground firmly.

“You arranged an affair for a lodger of mine last year,” she said—“Mr. Fairdale
Hobbs.”

“Ah, yes—a simple matter.”

“But he would never cease talking of it—your kindness, sir, and the way in
which you brought light into the darkness.  I remembered his words when I was
in doubt and darkness myself.  I know you could if you only would.”

Holmes was accessible upon the side of flattery, and also, to do him justice,
upon the side of kindliness.  The two forces made him lay down his gum-brush
with a sigh of resignation and push back his chair.

“Well, well, Mrs. Warren, let us hear about it, then.  You don’t object to
tobacco, I take it?  Thank you, Watson—the matches!  You are uneasy, as I
understand, because your new lodger remains in his rooms and you cannot see
him.  Why, bless you, Mrs. Warren, if I were your lodger you often would not
see me for weeks on end.”

“No doubt, sir; but this is different.  It frightens me, Mr. Holmes.  I can’t
sleep for fright.  To hear his quick step moving here and moving there from
early morning to late at night, and yet never to catch so much as a glimpse of
him—it’s more than I can stand.  My husband is as nervous over it as I am, but
he is out at his work all day, while I get no rest from it.  What is he hiding
for?  What has he done?  Except for the girl, I am all alone in the house with
him, and it’s more than my nerves can stand.”

Holmes leaned forward and laid his long, thin fingers upon the woman’s
shoulder.  He had an almost hypnotic power of soothing when he wished.  The
scared look faded from her eyes, and her agitated features smoothed into their
usual commonplace.  She sat down in the chair which he had indicated.

“If I take it up I must understand every detail,” said he.  “Take time to
consider.  The smallest point may be the most essential.  You say that the man
came ten days ago and paid you for a fortnight’s board and lodging?”

“He asked my terms, sir.  I said fifty shillings a week.  There is a small
sitting-room and bedroom, and all complete, at the top of the house.”

“Well?”

“He said, ‘I’ll pay you five pounds a week if I can have it on my own terms.’
I’m a poor woman, sir, and Mr. Warren earns little, and the money meant much to
me.  He took out a ten-pound note, and he held it out to me then and there.
‘You can have the same every fortnight for a long time to come if you keep the
terms,’ he said.  ‘If not, I’ll have no more to do with you.’

“What were the terms?”

“Well, sir, they were that he was to have a key of the house.  That was all
right.  Lodgers often have them.  Also, that he was to be left entirely to
himself and never, upon any excuse, to be disturbed.”

“Nothing wonderful in that, surely?”

“Not in reason, sir.  But this is out of all reason.  He has been there for ten
days, and neither Mr. Warren, nor I, nor the girl has once set eyes upon him.
We can hear that quick step of his pacing up and down, up and down, night,
morning, and noon; but except on that first night he had never once gone out of
the house.”

“Oh, he went out the first night, did he?”

“Yes, sir, and returned very late—after we were all in bed.  He told me after
he had taken the rooms that he would do so and asked me not to bar the door.  I
heard him come up the stair after midnight.”

“But his meals?”

“It was his particular direction that we should always, when he rang, leave his
meal upon a chair, outside his door.  Then he rings again when he has finished,
and we take it down from the same chair.  If he wants anything else he prints
it on a slip of paper and leaves it.”

“Prints it?”

“Yes, sir; prints it in pencil.  Just the word, nothing more.  Here’s the one I
brought to show you—soap.  Here’s another—match.  This is one he left the first
morning—daily gazette.  I leave that paper with his breakfast every morning.”

“Dear me, Watson,” said Homes, staring with great curiosity at the slips of
foolscap which the landlady had handed to him, “this is certainly a little
unusual.  Seclusion I can understand; but why print?  Printing is a clumsy
process.  Why not write?  What would it suggest, Watson?”

“That he desired to conceal his handwriting.”

“But why?  What can it matter to him that his landlady should have a word of
his writing?  Still, it may be as you say.  Then, again, why such laconic
messages?”

“I cannot imagine.”

“It opens a pleasing field for intelligent speculation.  The words are written
with a broad-pointed, violet-tinted pencil of a not unusual pattern.  You will
observe that the paper is torn away at the side here after the printing was
done, so that the ‘s’ of ‘soap’ is partly gone.  Suggestive, Watson, is it
not?”

“Of caution?”

“Exactly.  There was evidently some mark, some thumbprint, something which
might give a clue to the person’s identity.  Now.  Mrs. Warren, you say that
the man was of middle size, dark, and bearded.  What age would he be?”

“Youngish, sir—not over thirty.”

“Well, can you give me no further indications?”

“He spoke good English, sir, and yet I thought he was a foreigner by his
accent.”

“And he was well dressed?”

“Very smartly dressed, sir—quite the gentleman.  Dark clothes—nothing you would
note.”

“He gave no name?”

“No, sir.”

“And has had no letters or callers?”

“None.”

“But surely you or the girl enter his room of a morning?”

“No, sir; he looks after himself entirely.”

“Dear me! that is certainly remarkable.  What about his luggage?”

“He had one big brown bag with him—nothing else.”

“Well, we don’t seem to have much material to help us.  Do you say nothing has
come out of that room—absolutely nothing?”

The landlady drew an envelope from her bag; from it she shook out two burnt
matches and a cigarette-end upon the table.

“They were on his tray this morning.  I brought them because I had heard that
you can read great things out of small ones.”

Holmes shrugged his shoulders.

“There is nothing here,” said he.  “The matches have, of course, been used to
light cigarettes.  That is obvious from the shortness of the burnt end.  Half
the match is consumed in lighting a pipe or cigar.  But, dear me! this
cigarette stub is certainly remarkable.  The gentleman was bearded and
moustached, you say?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t understand that.  I should say that only a clean-shaven man could have
smoked this.  Why, Watson, even your modest moustache would have been singed.”

“A holder?” I suggested.

“No, no; the end is matted.  I suppose there could not be two people in your
rooms, Mrs. Warren?”

“No, sir.  He eats so little that I often wonder it can keep life in one.”

“Well, I think we must wait for a little more material.  After all, you have
nothing to complain of.  You have received your rent, and he is not a
troublesome lodger, though he is certainly an unusual one.  He pays you well,
and if he chooses to lie concealed it is no direct business of yours.  We have
no excuse for an intrusion upon his privacy until we have some reason to think
that there is a guilty reason for it.  I’ve taken up the matter, and I won’t
lose sight of it.  Report to me if anything fresh occurs, and rely upon my
assistance if it should be needed.

“There are certainly some points of interest in this case, Watson,” he remarked
when the landlady had left us.  “It may, of course, be trivial—individual
eccentricity; or it may be very much deeper than appears on the surface.  The
first thing that strikes one is the obvious possibility that the person now in
the rooms may be entirely different from the one who engaged them.”

“Why should you think so?”

“Well, apart from this cigarette-end, was it not suggestive that the only time
the lodger went out was immediately after his taking the rooms?  He came
back—or someone came back—when all witnesses were out of the way.  We have no
proof that the person who came back was the person who went out.  Then, again,
the man who took the rooms spoke English well.  This other, however, prints
‘match’ when it should have been ‘matches.’ I can imagine that the word was
taken out of a dictionary, which would give the noun but not the plural.  The
laconic style may be to conceal the absence of knowledge of English.  Yes,
Watson, there are good reasons to suspect that there has been a substitution of
lodgers.”

“But for what possible end?”

“Ah! there lies our problem.  There is one rather obvious line of
investigation.”  He took down the great book in which, day by day, he filed the
agony columns of the various London journals.  “Dear me!” said he, turning over
the pages, “what a chorus of groans, cries, and bleatings!  What a rag-bag of
singular happenings!  But surely the most valuable hunting-ground that ever was
given to a student of the unusual!  This person is alone and cannot be
approached by letter without a breach of that absolute secrecy which is
desired.  How is any news or any message to reach him from without?  Obviously
by advertisement through a newspaper.  There seems no other way, and
fortunately we need concern ourselves with the one paper only.  Here are the
Daily Gazette extracts of the last fortnight.  ‘Lady with a black boa at
Prince’s Skating Club’—that we may pass.  ‘Surely Jimmy will not break his
mother’s heart’—that appears to be irrelevant.  ‘If the lady who fainted on
Brixton bus’—she does not interest me.  ‘Every day my heart longs—’ Bleat,
Watson—unmitigated bleat!  Ah, this is a little more possible.  Listen to this:
‘Be patient.  Will find some sure means of communications.  Meanwhile, this
column.  G.’ That is two days after Mrs. Warren’s lodger arrived.  It sounds
plausible, does it not?  The mysterious one could understand English, even if
he could not print it.  Let us see if we can pick up the trace again.  Yes,
here we are—three days later.  ‘Am making successful arrangements.  Patience
and prudence.  The clouds will pass.  G.’ Nothing for a week after that.  Then
comes something much more definite: ‘The path is clearing.  If I find chance
signal message remember code agreed— One A, two B, and so on.  You will hear
soon.  G.’ That was in yesterday’s paper, and there is nothing in to-day’s.
It’s all very appropriate to Mrs. Warren’s lodger.  If we wait a little,
Watson, I don’t doubt that the affair will grow more intelligible.”

So it proved; for in the morning I found my friend standing on the hearthrug
with his back to the fire and a smile of complete satisfaction upon his face.

“How’s this, Watson?” he cried, picking up the paper from the table.  “‘High
red house with white stone facings.  Third floor.  Second window left.  After
dusk.  G.’ That is definite enough.  I think after breakfast we must make a
little reconnaissance of Mrs. Warren’s neighbourhood.  Ah, Mrs. Warren! what
news do you bring us this morning?”

Our client had suddenly burst into the room with an explosive energy which told
of some new and momentous development.

“It’s a police matter, Mr. Holmes!” she cried.  “I’ll have no more of it!  He
shall pack out of there with his baggage.  I would have gone straight up and
told him so, only I thought it was but fair to you to take your opinion first.
But I’m at the end of my patience, and when it comes to knocking my old man
about—”

“Knocking Mr. Warren about?”

“Using him roughly, anyway.”

“But who used him roughly?”

“Ah! that’s what we want to know!  It was this morning, sir.  Mr. Warren is a
timekeeper at Morton and Waylight’s, in Tottenham Court Road.  He has to be out
of the house before seven.  Well, this morning he had not gone ten paces down
the road when two men came up behind him, threw a coat over his head, and
bundled him into a cab that was beside the curb.  They drove him an hour, and
then opened the door and shot him out.  He lay in the roadway so shaken in his
wits that he never saw what became of the cab.  When he picked himself up he
found he was on Hampstead Heath; so he took a bus home, and there he lies now
on his sofa, while I came straight round to tell you what had happened.”

“Most interesting,” said Holmes.  “Did he observe the appearance of these
men—did he hear them talk?”

“No; he is clean dazed.  He just knows that he was lifted up as if by magic and
dropped as if by magic.  Two at least were in it, and maybe three.”

“And you connect this attack with your lodger?”

“Well, we’ve lived there fifteen years and no such happenings ever came before.
I’ve had enough of him.  Money’s not everything.  I’ll have him out of my house
before the day is done.”

“Wait a bit, Mrs. Warren.  Do nothing rash.  I begin to think that this affair
may be very much more important than appeared at first sight.  It is clear now
that some danger is threatening your lodger.  It is equally clear that his
enemies, lying in wait for him near your door, mistook your husband for him in
the foggy morning light.  On discovering their mistake they released him.  What
they would have done had it not been a mistake, we can only conjecture.”

“Well, what am I to do, Mr. Holmes?”

“I have a great fancy to see this lodger of yours, Mrs. Warren.”

“I don’t see how that is to be managed, unless you break in the door.  I always
hear him unlock it as I go down the stair after I leave the tray.”

“He has to take the tray in.  Surely we could conceal ourselves and see him do
it.”

The landlady thought for a moment.

“Well, sir, there’s the box-room opposite.  I could arrange a looking-glass,
maybe, and if you were behind the door—”

“Excellent!” said Holmes.  “When does he lunch?”

“About one, sir.”

“Then Dr. Watson and I will come round in time.  For the present, Mrs. Warren,
good-bye.”

At half-past twelve we found ourselves upon the steps of Mrs. Warren’s house—a
high, thin, yellow-brick edifice in Great Orme Street, a narrow thoroughfare at
the northeast side of the British Museum.  Standing as it does near the corner
of the street, it commands a view down Howe Street, with its more pretentious
houses.  Holmes pointed with a chuckle to one of these, a row of residential
flats, which projected so that they could not fail to catch the eye.

“See, Watson!” said he.  “‘High red house with stone facings.’ There is the
signal station all right.  We know the place, and we know the code; so surely
our task should be simple.  There’s a ‘to let’ card in that window.  It is
evidently an empty flat to which the confederate has access.  Well,
Mrs. Warren, what now?”

“I have it all ready for you.  If you will both come up and leave your boots
below on the landing, I’ll put you there now.”

It was an excellent hiding-place which she had arranged.  The mirror was so
placed that, seated in the dark, we could very plainly see the door opposite.
We had hardly settled down in it, and Mrs. Warren left us, when a distant
tinkle announced that our mysterious neighbour had rung.  Presently the
landlady appeared with the tray, laid it down upon a chair beside the closed
door, and then, treading heavily, departed.  Crouching together in the angle of
the door, we kept our eyes fixed upon the mirror.  Suddenly, as the landlady’s
footsteps died away, there was the creak of a turning key, the handle revolved,
and two thin hands darted out and lifted the tray from the chair.  An instant
later it was hurriedly replaced, and I caught a glimpse of a dark, beautiful,
horrified face glaring at the narrow opening of the box-room.  Then the door
crashed to, the key turned once more, and all was silence.  Holmes twitched my
sleeve, and together we stole down the stair.

“I will call again in the evening,” said he to the expectant landlady.  “I
think, Watson, we can discuss this business better in our own quarters.”

“My surmise, as you saw, proved to be correct,” said he, speaking from the
depths of his easy-chair.  “There has been a substitution of lodgers.  What I
did not foresee is that we should find a woman, and no ordinary woman, Watson.”

“She saw us.”

“Well, she saw something to alarm her.  That is certain.  The general sequence
of events is pretty clear, is it not?  A couple seek refuge in London from a
very terrible and instant danger.  The measure of that danger is the rigour of
their precautions.  The man, who has some work which he must do, desires to
leave the woman in absolute safety while he does it.  It is not an easy
problem, but he solved it in an original fashion, and so effectively that her
presence was not even known to the landlady who supplies her with food.  The
printed messages, as is now evident, were to prevent her sex being discovered
by her writing.  The man cannot come near the woman, or he will guide their
enemies to her.  Since he cannot communicate with her direct, he has recourse
to the agony column of a paper.  So far all is clear.”

“But what is at the root of it?”

“Ah, yes, Watson—severely practical, as usual!  What is at the root of it all?
Mrs. Warren’s whimsical problem enlarges somewhat and assumes a more sinister
aspect as we proceed.  This much we can say: that it is no ordinary love
escapade.  You saw the woman’s face at the sign of danger.  We have heard, too,
of the attack upon the landlord, which was undoubtedly meant for the lodger.
These alarms, and the desperate need for secrecy, argue that the matter is one
of life or death.  The attack upon Mr. Warren further shows that the enemy,
whoever they are, are themselves not aware of the substitution of the female
lodger for the male.  It is very curious and complex, Watson.”

“Why should you go further in it?  What have you to gain from it?”

“What, indeed?  It is art for art’s sake, Watson.  I suppose when you doctored
you found yourself studying cases without thought of a fee?”

“For my education, Holmes.”

“Education never ends, Watson.  It is a series of lessons with the greatest for
the last.  This is an instructive case.  There is neither money nor credit in
it, and yet one would wish to tidy it up.  When dusk comes we should find
ourselves one stage advanced in our investigation.”

When we returned to Mrs. Warren’s rooms, the gloom of a London winter evening
had thickened into one gray curtain, a dead monotone of colour, broken only by
the sharp yellow squares of the windows and the blurred haloes of the
gas-lamps.  As we peered from the darkened sitting-room of the lodging-house,
one more dim light glimmered high up through the obscurity.

“Someone is moving in that room,” said Holmes in a whisper, his gaunt and eager
face thrust forward to the window-pane.  “Yes, I can see his shadow.  There he
is again!  He has a candle in his hand.  Now he is peering across.  He wants to
be sure that she is on the lookout.  Now he begins to flash.  Take the message
also, Watson, that we may check each other.  A single flash—that is A, surely.
Now, then.  How many did you make it?  Twenty.  So did I.  That should mean T.
AT—that’s intelligible enough.  Another T.  Surely this is the beginning of a
second word.  Now, then—TENTA.  Dead stop.  That can’t be all, Watson?  ATTENTA
gives no sense.  Nor is it any better as three words AT, TEN, TA, unless
T. A. are a person’s initials.  There it goes again!  What’s that?  ATTE—why,
it is the same message over again.  Curious, Watson, very curious.  Now he is
off once more!  AT—why he is repeating it for the third time.  ATTENTA three
times!  How often will he repeat it?  No, that seems to be the finish.  He has
withdrawn from the window.  What do you make of it, Watson?”

“A cipher message, Holmes.”

My companion gave a sudden chuckle of comprehension.  “And not a very obscure
cipher, Watson,” said he.  “Why, of course, it is Italian!  The A means that it
is addressed to a woman.  ‘Beware!  Beware!  Beware!’ How’s that, Watson?

“I believe you have hit it.”

“Not a doubt of it.  It is a very urgent message, thrice repeated to make it
more so.  But beware of what?  Wait a bit, he is coming to the window once
more.”

Again we saw the dim silhouette of a crouching man and the whisk of the small
flame across the window as the signals were renewed.  They came more rapidly
than before—so rapid that it was hard to follow them.

“PERICOLO—pericolo—eh, what’s that, Watson?  ‘Danger,’ isn’t it?  Yes, by Jove,
it’s a danger signal.  There he goes again!  PERI.  Halloa, what on earth—”

The light had suddenly gone out, the glimmering square of window had
disappeared, and the third floor formed a dark band round the lofty building,
with its tiers of shining casements.  That last warning cry had been suddenly
cut short.  How, and by whom?  The same thought occurred on the instant to us
both.  Holmes sprang up from where he crouched by the window.

“This is serious, Watson,” he cried.  “There is some devilry going forward!
Why should such a message stop in such a way?  I should put Scotland Yard in
touch with this business—and yet, it is too pressing for us to leave.”

“Shall I go for the police?”

“We must define the situation a little more clearly.  It may bear some more
innocent interpretation.  Come, Watson, let us go across ourselves and see what
we can make of it.”  As we walked rapidly down Howe Street I glanced back at
the building which we had left.  There, dimly outlined at the top window, I
could see the shadow of a head, a woman’s head, gazing tensely, rigidly, out
into the night, waiting with breathless suspense for the renewal of that
interrupted message.  At the doorway of the Howe Street flats a man, muffled in
a cravat and greatcoat, was leaning against the railing.  He started as the
hall-light fell upon our faces.

“Holmes!” he cried.

“Why, Gregson!” said my companion as he shook hands with the Scotland Yard
detective.  “Journeys end with lovers’ meetings.  What brings you here?”

“The same reasons that bring you, I expect,” said Gregson.  “How you got on to
it I can’t imagine.”

“Different threads, but leading up to the same tangle.  I’ve been taking the
signals.”

“Signals?”

“Yes, from that window.  They broke off in the middle.  We came over to see the
reason.  But since it is safe in your hands I see no object in continuing this
business.”

“Wait a bit!” cried Gregson eagerly.  “I’ll do you this justice, Mr. Holmes,
that I was never in a case yet that I didn’t feel stronger for having you on my
side.  There’s only the one exit to these flats, so we have him safe.”

“Who is he?”

“Well, well, we score over you for once, Mr. Holmes.  You must give us best
this time.”  He struck his stick sharply upon the ground, on which a cabman,
his whip in his hand, sauntered over from a four-wheeler which stood on the far
side of the street.  “May I introduce you to Mr. Sherlock Holmes?” he said to
the cabman.  “This is Mr. Leverton, of Pinkerton’s American Agency.”

“The hero of the Long Island cave mystery?” said Holmes.  “Sir, I am pleased to
meet you.”

The American, a quiet, businesslike young man, with a clean-shaven, hatchet
face, flushed up at the words of commendation.  “I am on the trail of my life
now, Mr. Holmes,” said he.  “If I can get Gorgiano—”

“What!  Gorgiano of the Red Circle?”

“Oh, he has a European fame, has he?  Well, we’ve learned all about him in
America.  We KNOW he is at the bottom of fifty murders, and yet we have nothing
positive we can take him on.  I tracked him over from New York, and I’ve been
close to him for a week in London, waiting some excuse to get my hand on his
collar.  Mr. Gregson and I ran him to ground in that big tenement house, and
there’s only one door, so he can’t slip us.  There’s three folk come out since
he went in, but I’ll swear he wasn’t one of them.”

“Mr. Holmes talks of signals,” said Gregson.  “I expect, as usual, he knows a
good deal that we don’t.”

In a few clear words Holmes explained the situation as it had appeared to us.
The American struck his hands together with vexation.

“He’s on to us!” he cried.

“Why do you think so?”

“Well, it figures out that way, does it not?  Here he is, sending out messages
to an accomplice—there are several of his gang in London.  Then suddenly, just
as by your own account he was telling them that there was danger, he broke
short off.  What could it mean except that from the window he had suddenly
either caught sight of us in the street, or in some way come to understand how
close the danger was, and that he must act right away if he was to avoid it?
What do you suggest, Mr. Holmes?”

“That we go up at once and see for ourselves.”

“But we have no warrant for his arrest.”

“He is in unoccupied premises under suspicious circumstances,” said Gregson.
“That is good enough for the moment.  When we have him by the heels we can see
if New York can’t help us to keep him.  I’ll take the responsibility of
arresting him now.”

Our official detectives may blunder in the matter of intelligence, but never in
that of courage.  Gregson climbed the stair to arrest this desperate murderer
with the same absolutely quiet and businesslike bearing with which he would
have ascended the official staircase of Scotland Yard.  The Pinkerton man had
tried to push past him, but Gregson had firmly elbowed him back.  London
dangers were the privilege of the London force.

The door of the left-hand flat upon the third landing was standing ajar.
Gregson pushed it open.  Within all was absolute silence and darkness.  I
struck a match and lit the detective’s lantern.  As I did so, and as the
flicker steadied into a flame, we all gave a gasp of surprise.  On the deal
boards of the carpetless floor there was outlined a fresh track of blood.  The
red steps pointed towards us and led away from an inner room, the door of which
was closed.  Gregson flung it open and held his light full blaze in front of
him, while we all peered eagerly over his shoulders.

In the middle of the floor of the empty room was huddled the figure of an
enormous man, his clean-shaven, swarthy face grotesquely horrible in its
contortion and his head encircled by a ghastly crimson halo of blood, lying in
a broad wet circle upon the white woodwork.  His knees were drawn up, his hands
thrown out in agony, and from the centre of his broad, brown, upturned throat
there projected the white haft of a knife driven blade-deep into his body.
Giant as he was, the man must have gone down like a pole-axed ox before that
terrific blow.  Beside his right hand a most formidable horn-handled, two-edged
dagger lay upon the floor, and near it a black kid glove.

“By George! it’s Black Gorgiano himself!” cried the American detective.
“Someone has got ahead of us this time.”

“Here is the candle in the window, Mr. Holmes,” said Gregson.  “Why, whatever
are you doing?”

Holmes had stepped across, had lit the candle, and was passing it backward and
forward across the window-panes.  Then he peered into the darkness, blew the
candle out, and threw it on the floor.

“I rather think that will be helpful,” said he.  He came over and stood in deep
thought while the two professionals were examining the body.  “You say that
three people came out from the flat while you were waiting downstairs,” said he
at last.  “Did you observe them closely?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Was there a fellow about thirty, black-bearded, dark, of middle size?”

“Yes; he was the last to pass me.”

“That is your man, I fancy.  I can give you his description, and we have a very
excellent outline of his footmark.  That should be enough for you.”

“Not much, Mr. Holmes, among the millions of London.”

“Perhaps not.  That is why I thought it best to summon this lady to your aid.”

We all turned round at the words.  There, framed in the doorway, was a tall and
beautiful woman—the mysterious lodger of Bloomsbury.  Slowly she advanced, her
face pale and drawn with a frightful apprehension, her eyes fixed and staring,
her terrified gaze riveted upon the dark figure on the floor.

“You have killed him!” she muttered.  “Oh, Dio mio, you have killed him!”  Then
I heard a sudden sharp intake of her breath, and she sprang into the air with a
cry of joy.  Round and round the room she danced, her hands clapping, her dark
eyes gleaming with delighted wonder, and a thousand pretty Italian exclamations
pouring from her lips.  It was terrible and amazing to see such a woman so
convulsed with joy at such a sight.  Suddenly she stopped and gazed at us all
with a questioning stare.

“But you!  You are police, are you not?  You have killed Giuseppe Gorgiano.  Is
it not so?”

“We are police, madam.”

She looked round into the shadows of the room.

“But where, then, is Gennaro?” she asked.  “He is my husband, Gennaro Lucca.  I
am Emilia Lucca, and we are both from New York.  Where is Gennaro?  He called
me this moment from this window, and I ran with all my speed.”

“It was I who called,” said Holmes.

“You!  How could you call?”

“Your cipher was not difficult, madam.  Your presence here was desirable.  I
knew that I had only to flash ‘Vieni’ and you would surely come.”

The beautiful Italian looked with awe at my companion.

“I do not understand how you know these things,” she said.  “Giuseppe
Gorgiano—how did he—” She paused, and then suddenly her face lit up with pride
and delight.  “Now I see it!  My Gennaro!  My splendid, beautiful Gennaro, who
has guarded me safe from all harm, he did it, with his own strong hand he
killed the monster!  Oh, Gennaro, how wonderful you are!  What woman could ever
be worthy of such a man?”

“Well, Mrs. Lucca,” said the prosaic Gregson, laying his hand upon the lady’s
sleeve with as little sentiment as if she were a Notting Hill hooligan, “I am
not very clear yet who you are or what you are; but you’ve said enough to make
it very clear that we shall want you at the Yard.”

“One moment, Gregson,” said Holmes.  “I rather fancy that this lady may be as
anxious to give us information as we can be to get it.  You understand, madam,
that your husband will be arrested and tried for the death of the man who lies
before us?  What you say may be used in evidence.  But if you think that he has
acted from motives which are not criminal, and which he would wish to have
known, then you cannot serve him better than by telling us the whole story.”

“Now that Gorgiano is dead we fear nothing,” said the lady.  “He was a devil
and a monster, and there can be no judge in the world who would punish my
husband for having killed him.”

“In that case,” said Holmes, “my suggestion is that we lock this door, leave
things as we found them, go with this lady to her room, and form our opinion
after we have heard what it is that she has to say to us.”

Half an hour later we were seated, all four, in the small sitting-room of
Signora Lucca, listening to her remarkable narrative of those sinister events,
the ending of which we had chanced to witness.  She spoke in rapid and fluent
but very unconventional English, which, for the sake of clearness, I will make
grammatical.

“I was born in Posilippo, near Naples,” said she, “and was the daughter of
Augusto Barelli, who was the chief lawyer and once the deputy of that part.
Gennaro was in my father’s employment, and I came to love him, as any woman
must.  He had neither money nor position—nothing but his beauty and strength
and energy—so my father forbade the match.  We fled together, were married at
Bari, and sold my jewels to gain the money which would take us to America.
This was four years ago, and we have been in New York ever since.

“Fortune was very good to us at first.  Gennaro was able to do a service to an
Italian gentleman—he saved him from some ruffians in the place called the
Bowery, and so made a powerful friend.  His name was Tito Castalotte, and he
was the senior partner of the great firm of Castalotte and Zamba, who are the
chief fruit importers of New York.  Signor Zamba is an invalid, and our new
friend Castalotte has all power within the firm, which employs more than three
hundred men.  He took my husband into his employment, made him head of a
department, and showed his good-will towards him in every way.  Signor
Castalotte was a bachelor, and I believe that he felt as if Gennaro was his
son, and both my husband and I loved him as if he were our father.  We had
taken and furnished a little house in Brooklyn, and our whole future seemed
assured when that black cloud appeared which was soon to overspread our sky.

“One night, when Gennaro returned from his work, he brought a fellow-countryman
back with him.  His name was Gorgiano, and he had come also from Posilippo.  He
was a huge man, as you can testify, for you have looked upon his corpse.  Not
only was his body that of a giant but everything about him was grotesque,
gigantic, and terrifying.  His voice was like thunder in our little house.
There was scarce room for the whirl of his great arms as he talked.  His
thoughts, his emotions, his passions, all were exaggerated and monstrous.  He
talked, or rather roared, with such energy that others could but sit and
listen, cowed with the mighty stream of words.  His eyes blazed at you and held
you at his mercy.  He was a terrible and wonderful man.  I thank God that he is
dead!

“He came again and again.  Yet I was aware that Gennaro was no more happy than
I was in his presence.  My poor husband would sit pale and listless, listening
to the endless raving upon politics and upon social questions which made up our
visitor’s conversation.  Gennaro said nothing, but I, who knew him so well,
could read in his face some emotion which I had never seen there before.  At
first I thought that it was dislike.  And then, gradually, I understood that it
was more than dislike.  It was fear—a deep, secret, shrinking fear.  That
night—the night that I read his terror—I put my arms round him and I implored
him by his love for me and by all that he held dear to hold nothing from me,
and to tell me why this huge man overshadowed him so.

“He told me, and my own heart grew cold as ice as I listened.  My poor Gennaro,
in his wild and fiery days, when all the world seemed against him and his mind
was driven half mad by the injustices of life, had joined a Neapolitan society,
the Red Circle, which was allied to the old Carbonari.  The oaths and secrets
of this brotherhood were frightful, but once within its rule no escape was
possible.  When we had fled to America Gennaro thought that he had cast it all
off forever.  What was his horror one evening to meet in the streets the very
man who had initiated him in Naples, the giant Gorgiano, a man who had earned
the name of ‘Death’ in the south of Italy, for he was red to the elbow in
murder!  He had come to New York to avoid the Italian police, and he had
already planted a branch of this dreadful society in his new home.  All this
Gennaro told me and showed me a summons which he had received that very day, a
Red Circle drawn upon the head of it telling him that a lodge would be held
upon a certain date, and that his presence at it was required and ordered.

“That was bad enough, but worse was to come.  I had noticed for some time that
when Gorgiano came to us, as he constantly did, in the evening, he spoke much
to me; and even when his words were to my husband those terrible, glaring,
wild-beast eyes of his were always turned upon me.  One night his secret came
out.  I had awakened what he called ‘love’ within him—the love of a brute—a
savage.  Gennaro had not yet returned when he came.  He pushed his way in,
seized me in his mighty arms, hugged me in his bear’s embrace, covered me with
kisses, and implored me to come away with him.  I was struggling and screaming
when Gennaro entered and attacked him.  He struck Gennaro senseless and fled
from the house which he was never more to enter.  It was a deadly enemy that we
made that night.

“A few days later came the meeting.  Gennaro returned from it with a face which
told me that something dreadful had occurred.  It was worse than we could have
imagined possible.  The funds of the society were raised by blackmailing rich
Italians and threatening them with violence should they refuse the money.  It
seems that Castalotte, our dear friend and benefactor, had been approached.  He
had refused to yield to threats, and he had handed the notices to the police.
It was resolved now that such an example should be made of them as would
prevent any other victim from rebelling.  At the meeting it was arranged that
he and his house should be blown up with dynamite.  There was a drawing of lots
as to who should carry out the deed.  Gennaro saw our enemy’s cruel face
smiling at him as he dipped his hand in the bag.  No doubt it had been
prearranged in some fashion, for it was the fatal disc with the Red Circle upon
it, the mandate for murder, which lay upon his palm.  He was to kill his best
friend, or he was to expose himself and me to the vengeance of his comrades.
It was part of their fiendish system to punish those whom they feared or hated
by injuring not only their own persons but those whom they loved, and it was
the knowledge of this which hung as a terror over my poor Gennaro’s head and
drove him nearly crazy with apprehension.

“All that night we sat together, our arms round each other, each strengthening
each for the troubles that lay before us.  The very next evening had been fixed
for the attempt.  By midday my husband and I were on our way to London, but not
before he had given our benefactor full warning of this danger, and had also
left such information for the police as would safeguard his life for the
future.

“The rest, gentlemen, you know for yourselves.  We were sure that our enemies
would be behind us like our own shadows.  Gorgiano had his private reasons for
vengeance, but in any case we knew how ruthless, cunning, and untiring he could
be.  Both Italy and America are full of stories of his dreadful powers.  If
ever they were exerted it would be now.  My darling made use of the few clear
days which our start had given us in arranging for a refuge for me in such a
fashion that no possible danger could reach me.  For his own part, he wished to
be free that he might communicate both with the American and with the Italian
police.  I do not myself know where he lived, or how.  All that I learned was
through the columns of a newspaper.  But once as I looked through my window, I
saw two Italians watching the house, and I understood that in some way Gorgiano
had found our retreat.  Finally Gennaro told me, through the paper, that he
would signal to me from a certain window, but when the signals came they were
nothing but warnings, which were suddenly interrupted.  It is very clear to me
now that he knew Gorgiano to be close upon him, and that, thank God! he was
ready for him when he came.  And now, gentleman, I would ask you whether we
have anything to fear from the law, or whether any judge upon earth would
condemn my Gennaro for what he has done?”

“Well, Mr. Gregson,” said the American, looking across at the official, “I
don’t know what your British point of view may be, but I guess that in New York
this lady’s husband will receive a pretty general vote of thanks.”

“She will have to come with me and see the chief,” Gregson answered.  “If what
she says is corroborated, I do not think she or her husband has much to fear.
But what I can’t make head or tail of, Mr. Holmes, is how on earth YOU got
yourself mixed up in the matter.”

“Education, Gregson, education.  Still seeking knowledge at the old university.
Well, Watson, you have one more specimen of the tragic and grotesque to add to
your collection.  By the way, it is not eight o’clock, and a Wagner night at
Covent Garden!  If we hurry, we might be in time for the second act.”