"And there was nothing else?" Holmes asked.
"Nothing of any importance. The man's novel, with which he had read
himself to sleep was lying upon the bed, and his pipe was on a chair
beside him. There was a glass of water on the table, and on the
window-sill a small chip ointment box containing a couple of pills."
Sherlock Holmes sprang from his chair with an exclamation of delight.
"The last link," he cried, exultantly. "My case is complete."
The two detectives stared at him in amazement.
"I have now in my hands," my companion said, confidently, "all the
threads which have formed such a tangle. There are, of course,
details to be filled in, but I am as certain of all the main facts,
from the time that Drebber parted from Stangerson at the station, up
to the discovery of the body of the latter, as if I had seen them
with my own eyes. I will give you a proof of my knowledge. Could you
lay your hand upon those pills?"
"I have them," said Lestrade, producing a small white box; "I took
them and the purse and the telegram, intending to have them put in a
place of safety at the Police Station. It was the merest chance my
taking these pills, for I am bound to say that I do not attach any
importance to them."
"Give them here," said Holmes. "Now, Doctor," turning to me, "are
those ordinary pills?"
They certainly were not. They were of a pearly grey colour, small,
round, and almost transparent against the light. "From their
lightness and transparency, I should imagine that they are soluble in
water," I remarked.
"Precisely so," answered Holmes. "Now would you mind going down and
fetching that poor little devil of a terrier which has been bad so
long, and which the landlady wanted you to put out of its pain
yesterday."
I went downstairs and carried the dog upstair in my arms. It's
laboured breathing and glazing eye showed that it was not far from
its end. Indeed, its snow-white muzzle proclaimed that it had already
exceeded the usual term of canine existence. I placed it upon a
cushion on the rug.
"I will now cut one of these pills in two," said Holmes, and drawing
his penknife he suited the action to the word. "One half we return
into the box for future purposes. The other half I will place in this
wine glass, in which is a teaspoonful of water. You perceive that our
friend, the Doctor, is right, and that it readily dissolves."
"This may be very interesting," said Lestrade, in the injured tone of
one who suspects that he is being laughed at, "I cannot see, however,
what it has to do with the death of Mr. Joseph Stangerson."
"Patience, my friend, patience! You will find in time that it has
everything to do with it. I shall now add a little milk to make the
mixture palatable, and on presenting it to the dog we find that he
laps it up readily enough."
As he spoke he turned the contents of the wine glass into a saucer
and placed it in front of the terrier, who speedily licked it dry.
Sherlock Holmes' earnest demeanour had so far convinced us that we
all sat in silence, watching the animal intently, and expecting some
startling effect. None such appeared, however. The dog continued to
lie stretched upon the cushion, breathing in a laboured way, but
apparently neither the better nor the worse for its draught.
Holmes had taken out his watch, and as minute followed minute without
result, an expression of the utmost chagrin and disappointment
appeared upon his features. He gnawed his lip, drummed his fingers
upon the table, and showed every other symptom of acute impatience.
So great was his emotion, that I felt sincerely sorry for him, while
the two detectives smiled derisively, by no means displeased at this
check which he had met.
"It can't be a coincidence," he cried, at last springing from his
chair and pacing wildly up and down the room; "it is impossible that
it should be a mere coincidence. The very pills which I suspected in
the case of Drebber are actually found after the death of Stangerson.
And yet they are inert. What can it mean? Surely my whole chain of
reasoning cannot have been false. It is impossible! And yet this
wretched dog is none the worse. Ah, I have it! I have it!" With a
perfect shriek of delight he rushed to the box, cut the other pill in
two, dissolved it, added milk, and presented it to the terrier. The
unfortunate creature's tongue seemed hardly to have been moistened in
it before it gave a convulsive shiver in every limb, and lay as rigid
and lifeless as if it had been struck by lightning.
Sherlock Holmes drew a long breath, and wiped the perspiration from
his forehead. "I should have more faith," he said; "I ought to know
by this time that when a fact appears to be opposed to a long train
of deductions, it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some
other interpretation. Of the two pills in that box one was of the
most deadly poison, and the other was entirely harmless. I ought to
have known that before ever I saw the box at all."
This last statement appeared to me to be so startling, that I could
hardly believe that he was in his sober senses. There was the dead
dog, however, to prove that his conjecture had been correct. It
seemed to me that the mists in my own mind were gradually clearing
away, and I began to have a dim, vague perception of the truth.
"All this seems strange to you," continued Holmes, "because you
failed at the beginning of the inquiry to grasp the importance of the
single real clue which was presented to you. I had the good fortune
to seize upon that, and everything which has occurred since then has
served to confirm my original supposition, and, indeed, was the
logical sequence of it. Hence things which have perplexed you and
made the case more obscure, have served to enlighten me and to
strengthen my conclusions. It is a mistake to confound strangeness
with mystery. The most commonplace crime is often the most mysterious
because it presents no new or special features from which deductions
may be drawn. This murder would have been infinitely more difficult
to unravel had the body of the victim been simply found lying in the
roadway without any of those outr?and sensational accompaniments
which have rendered it remarkable. These strange details, far from
making the case more difficult, have really had the effect of making
it less so."
Mr. Gregson, who had listened to this address with considerable
impatience, could contain himself no longer. "Look here, Mr. Sherlock
Holmes," he said, "we are all ready to acknowledge that you are a
smart man, and that you have your own methods of working. We want
something more than mere theory and preaching now, though. It is a
case of taking the man. I have made my case out, and it seems I was
wrong. Young Charpentier could not have been engaged in this second
affair. Lestrade went after his man, Stangerson, and it appears that
he was wrong too. You have thrown out hints here, and hints there,
and seem to know more than we do, but the time has come when we feel
that we have a right to ask you straight how much you do know of the
business. Can you name the man who did it?"
"I cannot help feeling that Gregson is right, sir," remarked
Lestrade. "We have both tried, and we have both failed. You have
remarked more than once since I have been in the room that you had
all the evidence which you require. Surely you will not withhold it
any longer."
"Any delay in arresting the assassin," I observed, "might give him
time to perpetrate some fresh atrocity."
Thus pressed by us all, Holmes showed signs of irresolution. He
continued to walk up and down the room with his head sunk on his
chest and his brows drawn down, as was his habit when lost in
thought.
"There will be no more murders," he said at last, stopping abruptly
and facing us. "You can put that consideration out of the question.
You have asked me if I know the name of the assassin. I do. The mere
knowing of his name is a small thing, however, compared with the
power of laying our hands upon him. This I expect very shortly to do.
I have good hopes of managing it through my own arrangements; but it
is a thing which needs delicate handling, for we have a shrewd and
desperate man to deal with, who is supported, as I have had occasion
to prove, by another who is as clever as himself. As long as this man
has no idea that anyone can have a clue there is some chance of
securing him; but if he had the slightest suspicion, he would change
his name, and vanish in an instant among the four million inhabitants
of this great city. Without meaning to hurt either of your feelings,
I am bound to say that I consider these men to be more than a match
for the official force, and that is why I have not asked your
assistance. If I fail I shall, of course, incur all the blame due to
this omission; but that I am prepared for. At present I am ready to
promise that the instant that I can communicate with you without
endangering my own combinations, I shall do so."
Gregson and Lestrade seemed to be far from satisfied by this
assurance, or by the depreciating allusion to the detective police.
The former had flushed up to the roots of his flaxen hair, while the
other's beady eyes glistened with curiosity and resentment. Neither
of them had time to speak, however, before there was a tap at the
door, and the spokesman of the street Arabs, young Wiggins,
introduced his insignificant and unsavoury person.
"Please, sir," he said, touching his forelock, "I have the cab
downstairs."
"Good boy," said Holmes, blandly. "Why don't you introduce this
pattern at Scotland Yard?" he continued, taking a pair of steel
handcuffs from a drawer. "See how beautifully the spring works. They
fasten in an instant."
"The old pattern is good enough," remarked Lestrade, "if we can only
find the man to put them on."
"Very good, very good," said Holmes, smiling. "The cabman may as well
help me with my boxes. Just ask him to step up, Wiggins."
I was surprised to find my companion speaking as though he were about
to set out on a journey, since he had not said anything to me about
it. There was a small portmanteau in the room, and this he pulled out
and began to strap. He was busily engaged at it when the cabman
entered the room.
"Just give me a help with this buckle, cabman," he said, kneeling
over his task, and never turning his head.
The fellow came forward with a somewhat sullen, defiant air, and put
down his hands to assist. At that instant there was a sharp click,
the jangling of metal, and Sherlock Holmes sprang to his feet again.
"Gentlemen," he cried, with flashing eyes, "let me introduce you to
Mr. Jefferson Hope, the murderer of Enoch Drebber and of Joseph
Stangerson."
The whole thing occurred in a moment--so quickly that I had no time
to realize it. I have a vivid recollection of that instant, of
Holmes' triumphant expression and the ring of his voice, of the
cabman's dazed, savage face, as he glared at the glittering
handcuffs, which had appeared as if by magic upon his wrists. For a
second or two we might have been a group of statues. Then, with an
inarticulate roar of fury, the prisoner wrenched himself free from
Holmes's grasp, and hurled himself through the window. Woodwork and
glass gave way before him; but before he got quite through, Gregson,
Lestrade, and Holmes sprang upon him like so many staghounds. He was
dragged back into the room, and then commenced a terrific conflict.
So powerful and so fierce was he, that the four of us were shaken off
again and again. He appeared to have the convulsive strength of a man
in an epileptic fit. His face and hands were terribly mangled by his
passage through the glass, but loss of blood had no effect in
diminishing his resistance. It was not until Lestrade succeeded in
getting his hand inside his neckcloth and half-strangling him that we
made him realize that his struggles were of no avail; and even then
we felt no security until we had pinioned his feet as well as his
hands. That done, we rose to our feet breathless and panting.
"We have his cab," said Sherlock Holmes. "It will serve to take him
to Scotland Yard. And now, gentlemen," he continued, with a pleasant
smile, "we have reached the end of our little mystery. You are very
welcome to put any questions that you like to me now, and there is no
danger that I will refuse to answer them."
PART II
The Country of the Saints.
CHAPTER I
On The Great Alkali Plain
In the central portion of the great North American Continent there
lies an arid and repulsive desert, which for many a long year served
as a barrier against the advance of civilisation. From the Sierra
