the same circular bristle of red hair, the same bloodless countenance.
The features were set, however, in a horrible smile, a fixed and
unnatural grin, which in that still and moonlit room was more
jarring to the nerves than any scowl or contortion. So like was the
face to that of our little friend that I looked round at him to make
sure that he was indeed with us. Then I recalled to mind that he bad
mentioned to us that his brother and he were twins.
"This is terrible!" I said to Holmes. "What is to be done?"
"The door must come down," he answered, and springing against it, he
put all his weight upon the lock.
It creaked and groaned but did not yield. Together we flung
ourselves upon it once more, and this time it gave way with a sudden
snap, and we found ourselves within Bartholomew Sholto's chamber.
It appeared to have been fitted up as a chemical laboratory. A
double line of glass-stoppered bottles was drawn up upon the wall
opposite the door, and the table was littered over with Bunsen
burners, test-tubes, and retorts. In the corners stood carboys of acid
in wicker baskets. One of these appeared to leak or to have been
broken, for a stream of dark-coloured liquid had trickled out from it,
and the air was heavy with a peculiarly pungent, tarlike odour. A
set of steps stood at one side of the room in the midst of a litter of
lath and plaster, and above them there was an opening in the ceiling
large enough for a man to pass through. At the foot of the steps a
long coil of rope was thrown carelessly together.
By the table in a wooden armchair the master of the house was seated
all in a heap, with his head sunk upon his left shoulder and that
ghastly, inscrutable smile upon his face. He was stiff and cold and
had clearly been dead many hours. It seemed to me that not only his
features but all his limbs were twisted and turned in the most
fantastic fashion. By his hand upon the table there lay a peculiar
instrument- a brown, close-grained stick, with a stone head like a
hammer, rudely lashed on with coarse twine. Beside it was a torn sheet
of note-paper with some words scrawled upon it. Holmes glanced at it
and then handed it to me.
"You see," he said with a significant raising of the eyebrows.
In the light of the lantern I read with a thrill of horror, "The
sign of the four."
"In God's name, what does it all mean?" I asked.
"It means murder," said he, stooping over the dead man. "Ah! I
expected it. Look here!"
He pointed to what looked like a long dark thorn stuck in the skin
just above the ear.
"It looks like a thorn," said I.
"It is a thorn. You may pick it out. But be careful, for it is
poisoned."
I took it up between my finger and thumb. It came away from the skin
so readily that hardly any mark was left behind. One tiny speck of
blood showed where the puncture had been.
"This is all an insoluble mystery to me," said I. "It grows darker
instead of clearer."
"On the contrary," he answered, "it clears every instant. I only
require a few missing links to have an entirely connected case."
We had almost forgotten our companion's presence since we entered
the chamber. He was still standing in the doorway, the very picture of
terror, wringing his hands and moaning to himself. Suddenly,
however, he broke out into a sharp, querulous cry.
"The treasure is gone!" he said. "They have robbed him of the
treasure! There is the hole through which we lowered it. I helped
him to do it! I was the last person who saw him! I left him here
last night, and I heard him lock the door as I came downstairs."
"What time was that?"
"It was ten o'clock. And now he is dead, and the police will be
called in, and I shall be suspected of having had a hand in it. Oh,
yes, I am sure I shall. But you don't think so, gentlemen? Surely
you don't think that it was I? Is it likely that I would have
brought you here if it were I? Oh, dear! oh, dear! I know that I shall
go mad!"
He jerked his arms and stamped his feet in a kind of convulsive
frenzy.
"You have no reason for fear, Mr. Sholto," said Holmes kindly,
putting his hand upon his shoulder; "take my advice and drive down
to the station to report the matter to the police. Offer to assist
them in every way. We shall wait here until your return."
The little man obeyed in a half-stupefied fashion, and we heard
him stumbling down the stairs in the dark.
Chapter 6
SHERLOCK HOLMES GIVES A DEMONSTRATION
"Now, Watson," said Holmes, rubbing his hands, "we have half an hour
to ourselves. Let us make good use of it. My case is, as I have told
you, almost complete; but we must not err on the side of
overconfidence. Simple as the case seems now, there may be something
deeper underlying it."
"Simple!" I ejaculated.
"Surely," said he with something of the air of a clinical
professor expounding to his class. "Just sit in the corner there, that
your footprints may not complicate matters. Now to work! In the
first place, how did these folk come and how did they go? The door has
not been opened since last night. How of the window?" He carried the
lamp across to it, muttering his observations aloud the while but
addressing them to himself rather than to me. "Window is snibbed on
the inner side. Frame-work is solid. No hinges at the side. Let us
open it. No water-pipe near. Roof quite out of reach. Yet a man has
mounted by the window. It rained a little last night. Here is the
print of a foot in mould upon the sill. And here is a circular muddy
mark, and here again upon the floor, and here again by the table.
See here, Watson! This is really a very pretty demonstration."
I looked at the round, well-defined muddy discs.
"That is not a foot-mark," said I.
"It is something much more valuable to us. It is the impression of a
wooden stump. You see here on the sill is the boot-mark, a heavy
boot with a broad metal heel, and beside it is the mark of the
timber-toe."
"It is the wooden-legged man."
"Quite so. But there has been someone else- a very able and
efficient ally. Could you scale that wall, Doctor?"
I looked out of the open window. The moon still shone brightly on
that angle of the house. We were a good sixty feet from the ground,
and, look where I would, I could see no foothold, nor as much as a
crevice in the brickwork.
"It is absolutely impossible," I answered.
"Without aid it is so. But suppose you had a friend up here who
lowered you this good stout rope which I see in the corner, securing
one end of it to this great hook in the wall. Then, I think, if you
were an active man, you might swarm up, wooden leg and all. You
would depart, of course, in the same fashion, and your ally would draw
up the rope, untie it from the hook, shut the window, snib it on the
inside, and get away in the way that he originally came. As a minor
point, it may be noted," he continued, fingering the rope, "that our
wooden-legged friend, though a fair climber, was not a professional
sailor. His hands were far from horny. My lens discloses more than one
blood-mark, especially towards the end of the rope, from which I
gather that he slipped down with such velocity that he took the skin
off his hands."
"This is all very well," said I; "but the thing becomes more
unintelligible than ever. How about this mysterious ally? How came
he into the room?"
"Yes, the ally!" repeated Holmes pensively. "There are features of
interest about this ally. He lifts the case from the regions of the
commonplace. I fancy that this ally breaks fresh ground in the
annals of crime in this country- though parallel cases suggest
themselves from India and, if my memory serves me, from Senegambia."
"How came he, then?" I reiterated. "The door is locked; the window
is inaccessible. Was it through the chimney?"
"The grate is much too small," he answered. "I had already
considered that possibility."
"How, then?" I persisted.
"You will not apply my precept," he said, shaking his head. "How
often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible,
whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? We know
that he did not come through the door, the window, or the chimney.
We also know that he could not have been concealed in the room, as
there is no concealment possible. When, then, did he come?"
"He came through the hole in the roof!" I cried.
"Of course he did. He must have done so. If you will have the
kindness to hold the lamp for me, we shall now extend our researches
to the room above- the secret room in which the treasure was found."
He mounted the steps, and, seizing a rafter with either hand, he
swung himself up into the garret. Then, lying on his face, he
reached down for the lamp and held it while I followed him.
The chamber in which we found ourselves was about ten feet one way
and six the other. The floor was formed by the rafters, with thin lath
and plaster between, so that in walking one had to step from beam to
beam. The roof ran up to an apex and was evidently the inner shell
of the true roof of the house. There was no furniture of any sort, and
the accumulated dust of years lay thick upon the floor.
"Here you are, you see," said Sherlock Holmes, putting his hand
against the sloping wall. "This is a trapdoor which leads out on to
the roof. I can press it back, and here is the roof itself, sloping at
a gentle angle. This, then, is the way by which Number One entered.
Let us see if we can find some other traces of his individuality?"
He held down the lamp to the floor, and as he did so I saw for the
second time that night a startled, surprised look come over his
face. For myself, as I followed his gaze, my skin was cold under my
clothes. The floor was covered thickly with the prints of a naked
foot- clear, well-defined, perfectly formed, but scarce half the
size of those of an ordinary man.
"Holmes," I said in a whisper, "a child has done this horrid thing."
He had recovered his self-possession in an instant.
"I was staggered for the moment," he said, "but the thing is quite
natural. My memory failed me, or I should have been able to foretell
it. There is nothing more to be learned here. Let us go down."
"What is your theory, then, as to those footmarks?" I asked
eagerly when we had regained the lower room once more.
"My dear Watson, try a little analysis yourself," said he with a
touch of impatience. "You know my methods. Apply them, and it will
be instructive to compare results."
"I cannot conceive anything which will cover the facts," I answered.
"It will be clear enough to you soon," he said, in an offhand way.
"I think that there is nothing else of importance here, but I will
look."
He whipped out his lens and a tape measure and hurried about the
room on his knees, measuring, comparing, examining, with his long thin
nose only a few inches from the planks and his beady eyes gleaming and
deep-set like those of a bird. So swift, silent, and furtive were
his movements, like those of a trained bloodhound picking out a scent,
that I could not but think what a terrible criminal he would have made
had he turned his energy and sagacity against the law instead of
exerting them in its defence. As he hunted about, he kept muttering to
himself, and finally he broke out into a loud crow of delight.
"We are certainly in luck," said he. "We ought to have very little
trouble now. Number One has had the misfortune to tread in the
creosote. You can see the outline of the edge of his small foot here
at the side of this evil-smelling mess. The carboy has been cracked,
you see, and the stuff has leaked out."
"What then?" I asked.
"Why, we have got him, that's all," said he.
"I know a dog that would follow that scent to the world's end. If
a pack can track a trailed herring across a shire, how far can a
specially trained hound follow so pungent a smell as this? It sounds
like a sum in the rule of three. The answer should give us the- But
hallo! here are the accredited representatives of the law."
Heavy steps and the clamour of loud voices were audible from
below, and the hall door shut with a loud crash.
"Before they come," said Holmes, "just put your hand here on this
poor fellow's arm, and here on his leg. What do you feel?"
"The muscles are as hard as a board," I answered.
"Quite so. They are in a state of extreme contraction, far exceeding
the usual rigor mortis. Coupled with this distortion of the face, this
Hippocratic smile, or `risus sardonicus,' as the old writers called
it, what conclusion would it suggest to your mind?"
"Death from some powerful vegetable alkaloid," I answered, "some
strychnine like substance which would produce tetanus."
"That was the idea which occurred to me the instant I saw the
drawn muscles of the face. On getting into the room I at once looked
for the means by which the poison had entered the system. As you
saw, I discovered a thorn which had been driven or shot with no
great force into the scalp. You observe that the part struck was
that which would be turned towards the hole in the ceiling if the
man were erect in his chair. Now examine this thorn."
I took it up gingerly and held it in the light of the lanter. It was
long, sharp, and black, with a glazed look near the point as though
