unless the matter were cleared up.
"Miss Morrison is a little ethereal slip of a girl, with timid eyes
and blond hair, but I found her by no means wanting in shrewdness and
common-sense. She sat thinking for some time after I had spoken, and
then, turning to me with a brisk air of resolution, she broke into a
remarkable statement which I will condense for your benefit.
"'I promised my friend that I would say nothing of the matter, and a
promise is a promise,' said she; 'but if I can really help her when
so serious a charge is laid against her, and when her own mouth, poor
darling, is closed by illness, then I think I am absolved from my
promise. I will tell you exactly what happened upon Monday evening.
"'We were returning from the Watt Street Mission about a quarter to
nine o'clock. On our way we had to pass through Hudson Street, which
is a very quiet thoroughfare. There is only one lamp in it, upon the
left-hand side, and as we approached this lamp I saw a man coming
towards us with is back very bent, and something like a box slung
over one of his shoulders. He appeared to be deformed, for he
carried his head low and walked with his knees bent. We were passing
him when he raised his face to look at us in the circle of light
thrown by the lamp, and as he did so he stopped and screamed out in a
dreadful voice, "My God, it's Nancy!" Mrs. Barclay turned as white
as death, and would have fallen down had the dreadful-looking
creature not caught hold of her. I was going to call for the police,
but she, to my surprise, spoke quite civilly to the fellow.
"'"I thought you had been dead this thirty years, Henry," said she,
in a shaking voice.
"'"So I have," said he, and it was awful to hear the tones that he
said it in. He had a very dark, fearsome face, and a gleam in his
eyes that comes back to me in my dreams. His hair and whiskers were
shot with gray, and his face was all crinkled and puckered like a
withered apple.
"'"Just walk on a little way, dear," said Mrs. Barclay; "I want to
have a word with this man. There is nothing to be afraid of." She
tried to speak boldly, but she was still deadly pale and could hardly
get her words out for the trembling of her lips.
"'I did as she asked me, and they talked together for a few minutes.
Then she came down the street with her eyes blazing, and I saw the
crippled wretch standing by the lamp-post and shaking his clenched
fists in the air as if he were made with rage. She never said a word
until we were at the door here, when she took me by the hand and
begged me to tell no one what had happened.
"'"It's an old acquaintance of mine who has come down in the world,"
said she. When I promised her I would say nothing she kissed me, and
I have never seen her since. I have told you now the whole truth,
and if I withheld it from the police it is because I did not realize
then the danger in which my dear friend stood. I know that it can
only be to her advantage that everything should be known.'
"There was her statement, Watson, and to me, as you can imagine, it
was like a light on a dark night. Everything which had been
disconnected before began at once to assume its true place, and I had
a shadowy presentiment of the whole sequence of events. My next step
obviously was to find the man who had produced such a remarkable
impression upon Mrs. Barclay. If he were still in Aldershot it
should not be a very difficult matter. There are not such a very
great number of civilians, and a deformed man was sure to have
attracted attention. I spent a day in the search, and by
evening--this very evening, Watson--I had run him down. The man's
name is Henry Wood, and he lives in lodgings in this same street in
which the ladies met him. He has only been five days in the place.
In the character of a registration-agent I had a most interesting
gossip with his landlady. The man is by trade a conjurer and
performer, going round the canteens after nightfall, and giving a
little entertainment at each. He carries some creature about with
him in that box; about which the landlady seemed to be in
considerable trepidation, for she had never seen an animal like it.
He uses it in some of his tricks according to her account. So much
the woman was able to tell me, and also that it was a wonder the man
lived, seeing how twisted he was, and that he spoke in a strange
tongue sometimes, and that for the last two nights she had heard him
groaning and weeping in his bedroom. He was all right, as far as
money went, but in his deposit he had given her what looked like a
bad florin. She showed it to me, Watson, and it was an Indian rupee.
"So now, my dear fellow, you see exactly how we stand and why it is I
want you. It is perfectly plain that after the ladies parted from
this man he followed them at a distance, that he saw the quarrel
between husband and wife through the window, that he rushed in, and
that the creature which he carried in his box got loose. That is all
very certain. But he is the only person in this world who can tell
us exactly what happened in that room."
"And you intend to ask him?"
"Most certainly--but in the presence of a witness."
"And I am the witness?"
"If you will be so good. If he can clear the matter up, well and
good. If he refuses, we have no alternative but to apply for a
warrant."
"But how do you know he'll be there when we return?"
"You may be sure that I took some precautions. I have one of my
Baker Street boys mounting guard over him who would stick to him like
a burr, go where he might. We shall find him in Hudson Street
to-morrow, Watson, and meanwhile I should be the criminal myself if I
kept you out of bed any longer."
It was midday when we found ourselves at the scene of the tragedy,
and, under my companion's guidance, we made our way at once to Hudson
Street. In spite of his capacity for concealing his emotions, I
could easily see that Holmes was in a state of suppressed excitement,
while I was myself tingling with that half-sporting,
half-intellectual pleasure which I invariably experienced when I
associated myself with him in his investigations.
"This is the street," said he, as we turned into a short thoroughfare
lined with plain two-storied brick houses. "Ah, here is Simpson to
report."
"He's in all right, Mr. Holmes," cried a small street Arab, running
up to us.
"Good, Simpson!" said Holmes, patting him on the head. "Come along,
Watson. This is the house." He sent in his card with a message that
he had come on important business, and a moment later we were face to
face with the man whom we had come to see. In spite of the warm
weather he was crouching over a fire, and the little room was like an
oven. The man sat all twisted and huddled in his chair in a way
which gave an indescribably impression of deformity; but the face
which he turned towards us, though worn and swarthy, must at some
time have been remarkable for its beauty. He looked suspiciously at
us now out of yellow-shot, bilious eyes, and, without speaking or
rising, he waved towards two chairs.
"Mr. Henry Wood, late of India, I believe," said Holmes, affably.
"I've come over this little matter of Colonel Barclay's death."
"What should I know about that?"
"That's what I want to ascertain. You know, I suppose, that unless
the matter is cleared up, Mrs. Barclay, who is an old friend of
yours, will in all probability be tried for murder."
The man gave a violent start.
"I don't know who you are," he cried, "nor how you come to know what
you do know, but will you swear that this is true that you tell me?"
"Why, they are only waiting for her to come to her senses to arrest
her."
"My God! Are you in the police yourself?"
"No."
"What business is it of yours, then?"
"It's every man's business to see justice done."
"You can take my word that she is innocent."
"Then you are guilty."
"No, I am not."
"Who killed Colonel James Barclay, then?"
"It was a just providence that killed him. But, mind you this, that
if I had knocked his brains out, as it was in my heart to do, he
would have had no more than his due from my hands. If his own guilty
conscience had not struck him down it is likely enough that I might
have had his blood upon my soul. You want me to tell the story.
Well, I don't know why I shouldn't, for there's no cause for me to be
ashamed of it.
"It was in this way, sir. You see me now with my back like a camel
and by ribs all awry, but there was a time when Corporal Henry Wood
was the smartest man in the 117th foot. We were in India then, in
cantonments, at a place we'll call Bhurtee. Barclay, who died the
other day, was sergeant in the same company as myself, and the belle
of the regiment, ay, and the finest girl that ever had the breath of
life between her lips, was Nancy Devoy, the daughter of the
color-sergeant. There were two men that loved her, and one that she
loved, and you'll smile when you look at this poor thing huddled
before the fire, and hear me say that it was for my good looks that
she loved me.
"Well, though I had her heart, her father was set upon her marrying
Barclay. I was a harum-scarum, reckless lad, and he had had an
education, and was already marked for the sword-belt. But the girl
held true to me, and it seemed that I would have had her when the
Mutiny broke out, and all hell was loose in the country.
"We were shut up in Bhurtee, the regiment of us with half a battery
of artillery, a company of Sikhs, and a lot of civilians and
women-folk. There were ten thousand rebels round us, and they were
as keen as a set of terriers round a rat-cage. About the second week
of it our water gave out, and it was a question whether we could
communicate with General Neill's column, which was moving up country.
It was our only chance, for we could not hope to fight our way out
with all the women and children, so I volunteered to go out and to
warn General Neill of our danger. My offer was accepted, and I
talked it over with Sergeant Barclay, who was supposed to know the
ground better than any other man, and who drew up a route by which I
might get through the rebel lines. At ten o'clock the same night I
started off upon my journey. There were a thousand lives to save,
but it was of only one that I was thinking when I dropped over the
wall that night.
"My way ran down a dried-up watercourse, which we hoped would screen
me from the enemy's sentries; but as I crept round the corner of it I
walked right into six of them, who were crouching down in the dark
waiting for me. In an instant I was stunned with a blow and bound
hand and foot. But the real blow was to my heart and not to my head,
for as I came to and listened to as much as I could understand of
their talk, I heard enough to tell me that my comrade, the very man
who had arranged the way that I was to take, had betrayed me by means
of a native servant into the hands of the enemy.
"Well, there's no need for me to dwell on that part of it. You know
now what James Barclay was capable of. Bhurtee was relieved by Neill
next day, but the rebels took me away with them in their retreat, and
it was many a long year before ever I saw a white face again. I was
tortured and tried to get away, and was captured and tortured again.
You can see for yourselves the state in which I was left. Some of
them that fled into Nepal took me with them, and then afterwards I
was up past Darjeeling. The hill-folk up there murdered the rebels
who had me, and I became their slave for a time until I escaped; but
instead of going south I had to go north, until I found myself among
the Afghans. There I wandered about for many a year, and at last
came back to the Punjaub, where I lived mostly among the natives and
picked up a living by the conjuring tricks that I had learned. What
use was it for me, a wretched cripple, to go back to England or to
make myself known to my old comrades? Even my wish for revenge would
not make me do that. I had rather that Nancy and my old pals should
think of Harry Wood as having died with a straight back, than see him
living and crawling with a stick like a chimpanzee. They never
doubted that I was dead, and I meant that they never should. I heard
that Barclay had married Nancy, and that he was rising rapidly in the
regiment, but even that did not make me speak.
"But when one gets old one has a longing for home. For years I've
been dreaming of the bright green fields and the hedges of England.
At last I determined to see them before I died. I saved enough to
bring me across, and then I came here where the soldiers are, for I
