be inclined to punish him for what they will regard as his
treachery."
Our hope was that, by taking train, we might get to Beckenham as soon
or sooner than the carriage. On reaching Scotland Yard, however, it
was more than an hour before we could get Inspector Gregson and
comply with the legal formalities which would enable us to enter the
house. It was a quarter to ten before we reached London Bridge, and
half past before the four of us alighted on the Beckenham platform.
A drive of half a mile brought us to The Myrtles--a large, dark house
standing back from the road in its own grounds. Here we dismissed
our cab, and made our way up the drive together.
"The windows are all dark," remarked the inspector. "The house seems
deserted."
"Our birds are flown and the nest empty," said Holmes.
"Why do you say so?"
"A carriage heavily loaded with luggage has passed out during the
last hour."
The inspector laughed. "I saw the wheel-tracks in the light of the
gate-lamp, but where does the luggage come in?"
"You may have observed the same wheel-tracks going the other way.
But the outward-bound ones were very much deeper--so much so that we
can say for a certainty that there was a very considerable weight on
the carriage."
"You get a trifle beyond me there," said the inspector, shrugging his
shoulder. "It will not be an easy door to force, but we will try if
we cannot make some one hear us."
He hammered loudly at the knocker and pulled at the bell, but without
any success. Holmes had slipped away, but he came back in a few
minutes.
"I have a window open," said he.
"It is a mercy that you are on the side of the force, and not against
it, Mr. Holmes," remarked the inspector, as he noted the clever way
in which my friend had forced back the catch. "Well, I think that
under the circumstances we may enter without an invitation."
One after the other we made our way into a large apartment, which was
evidently that in which Mr. Melas had found himself. The inspector
had lit his lantern, and by its light we could see the two doors, the
curtain, the lamp, and the suit of Japanese mail as he had described
them. On the table lay two glasses, and empty brandy-bottle, and the
remains of a meal.
"What is that?" asked Holmes, suddenly.
We all stood still and listened. A low moaning sound was coming from
somewhere over our heads. Holmes rushed to the door and out into the
hall. The dismal noise came from upstairs. He dashed up, the
inspector and I at his heels, while his brother Mycroft followed as
quickly as his great bulk would permit.
Three doors faced up upon the second floor, and it was from the
central of these that the sinister sounds were issuing, sinking
sometimes into a dull mumble and rising again into a shrill whine.
It was locked, but the key had been left on the outside. Holmes
flung open the door and rushed in, but he was out again in an
instant, with his hand to his throat.
"It's charcoal," he cried. "Give it time. It will clear."
Peering in, we could see that the only light in the room came from a
dull blue flame which flickered from a small brass tripod in the
centre. It threw a livid, unnatural circle upon the floor, while in
the shadows beyond we saw the vague loom of two figures which
crouched against the wall. From the open door there reeked a
horrible poisonous exhalation which set us gasping and coughing.
Holmes rushed to the top of the stairs to draw in the fresh air, and
then, dashing into the room, he threw up the window and hurled the
brazen tripod out into the garden.
"We can enter in a minute," he gasped, darting out again. "Where is
a candle? I doubt if we could strike a match in that atmosphere.
Hold the light at the door and we shall get them out, Mycroft, now!"
With a rush we got to the poisoned men and dragged them out into the
well-lit hall. Both of them were blue-lipped and insensible, with
swollen, congested faces and protruding eyes. Indeed, so distorted
were their features that, save for his black beard and stout figure,
we might have failed to recognize in one of them the Greek
interpreter who had parted from us only a few hours before at the
Diogenes Club. His hands and feet were securely strapped together,
and he bore over one eye the marks of a violent blow. The other, who
was secured in a similar fashion, was a tall man in the last stage of
emaciation, with several strips of sticking-plaster arranged in a
grotesque pattern over his face. He had ceased to moan as we laid
him down, and a glance showed me that for him at least our aid had
come too late. Mr. Melas, however, still lived, and in less than an
hour, with the aid of ammonia and brandy I had the satisfaction of
seeing him open his eyes, and of knowing that my hand had drawn him
back from that dark valley in which all paths meet.
It was a simple story which he had to tell, and one which did but
confirm our own deductions. His visitor, on entering his rooms, had
drawn a life-preserver from his sleeve, and had so impressed him with
the fear of instant and inevitable death that he had kidnapped him
for the second time. Indeed, it was almost mesmeric, the effect
which this giggling ruffian had produced upon the unfortunate
linguist, for he could not speak of him save with trembling hands and
a blanched cheek. He had been taken swiftly to Beckenham, and had
acted as interpreter in a second interview, even more dramatic than
the first, in which the two Englishmen had menaced their prisoner
with instant death if he did not comply with their demands. Finally,
finding him proof against every threat, they had hurled him back into
his prison, and after reproaching Melas with his treachery, which
appeared from the newspaper advertisement, they had stunned him with
a blow from a stick, and he remembered nothing more until he found us
bending over him.
And this was the singular case of the Grecian Interpreter, the
explanation of which is still involved in some mystery. We were able
to find out, by communicating with the gentleman who had answered the
advertisement, that the unfortunate young lady came of a wealthy
Grecian family, and that she had been on a visit to some friends in
England. While there she had met a young man named Harold Latimer,
who had acquired an ascendancy over her and had eventually persuaded
her to fly with him. Her friends, shocked at the event, had
contented themselves with informing her brother at Athens, and had
then washed their hands of the matter. The brother, on his arrival
in England, had imprudently placed himself in the power of Latimer
and of his associate, whose name was Wilson Kemp--a man of the
foulest antecedents. These two, finding that through his ignorance
of the language he was helpless in their hands, had kept him a
prisoner, and had endeavored by cruelty and starvation to make him
sign away his own and his sister's property. They had kept him in
the house without the girl's knowledge, and the plaster over the face
had been for the purpose of making recognition difficult in case she
should ever catch a glimpse of him. Her feminine perception,
however, had instantly seen through the disguise when, on the
occasion of the interpreter's visit, she had seen him for the first
time. The poor girl, however, was herself a prisoner, for there was
no one about the house except the man who acted as coachman, and his
wife, both of whom were tools of the conspirators. Finding that
their secret was out, and that their prisoner was not to be coerced,
the two villains with the girl had fled away at a few hours' notice
from the furnished house which they had hired, having first, as they
thought, taken vengeance both upon the man who had defied and the one
who had betrayed them.
Months afterwards a curious newspaper cutting reached us from
Buda-Pesth. It told how two Englishmen who had been traveling with a
woman had met with a tragic end. They had each been stabbed, it
seems, and the Hungarian police were of opinion that they had
quarreled and had inflicted mortal injuries upon each other. Holmes,
however, is, I fancy, of a different way of thinking, and holds to
this day that, if one could find the Grecian girl, one might learn
how the wrongs of herself and her brother came to be avenged.
THE NAVAL TREATY
The July which immediately succeeded my marriage was made memorable
by three cases of interest, in which I had the privilege of being
associated with Sherlock Holmes and of studying his methods. I find
them recorded in my notes under the headings of "The Adventure of the
Second Stain," "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty," and "The
Adventure of the Tired Captain." The first of these, however, deals
with interest of such importance and implicates so many of the first
families in the kingdom that for many years it will be impossible to
make it public. No case, however, in which Holmes was engaged has
ever illustrated the value of his analytical methods so clearly or
has impressed those who were associated with him so deeply. I still
retain an almost verbatim report of the interview in which he
demonstrated the true facts of the case to Monsieur Dubugue of the
Paris police, and Fritz von Waldbaum, the well-known specialist of
Dantzig, both of whom had wasted their energies upon what proved to
be side-issues. The new century will have come, however, before the
story can be safely told. Meanwhile I pass on to the second on my
list, which promised also at one time to be of national importance,
and was marked by several incidents which give it a quite unique
character.
During my school-days I had been intimately associated with a lad
named Percy Phelps, who was of much the same age as myself, though he
was two classes ahead of me. He was a very brilliant boy, and carried
away every prize which the school had to offer, finished his exploits
by winning a scholarship which sent him on to continue his triumphant
career at Cambridge. He was, I remember, extremely well connected,
and even when we were all little boys together we knew that his
mother's brother was Lord Holdhurst, the great conservative
politician. This gaudy relationship did him little good at school. On
the contrary, it seemed rather a piquant thing to us to chevy him
about the playground and hit him over the shins with a wicket. But it
was another thing when he came out into the world. I heard vaguely
that his abilities and the influences which he commanded had won him
a good position at the Foreign Office, and then he passed completely
out of my mind until the following letter recalled his existence:
Briarbrae, Woking.
My dear Watson:
I have no doubt that you can remember "Tadpole" Phelps, who was in
the fifth form when you were in the third. It is possible even that
you may have heard that through my uncle's influence I obtained a
good appointment at the Foreign Office, and that I was in a situation
of trust and honor until a horrible misfortune came suddenly to blast
my career.
There is no use writing of the details of that dreadful event. In the
event of your acceding to my request it is probably that I shall have
to narrate them to you. I have only just recovered from nine weeks of
brain-fever, and am still exceedingly weak. Do you think that you
could bring your friend Mr. Holmes down to see me? I should like to
have his opinion of the case, though the authorities assure me that
nothing more can be done. Do try to bring him down, and as soon as
possible. Every minute seems an hour while I live in this state of
horrible suspense. Assure him that if I have not asked his advice
sooner it was not because I did not appreciate his talents, but
because I have been off my head ever since the blow fell. Now I am
clear again, though I dare not think of it too much for fear of a
relapse. I am still so weak that I have to write, as you see, by
dictating. Do try to bring him.
Your old school-fellow,
Percy Phelps.
There was something that touched me as I read this letter, something
pitiable in the reiterated appeals to bring Holmes. So moved was I
that even had it been a difficult matter I should have tried it, but
of course I knew well that Holmes loved his art, so that he was ever
as ready to bring his aid as his client could be to receive it. My
wife agreed with me that not a moment should be lost in laying the
matter before him, and so within an hour of breakfast-time I found
myself back once more in the old rooms in Baker Street.
Holmes was seated at his side-table clad in his dressing-gown, and
working hard over a chemical investigation. A large curved retort was
boiling furiously in the bluish flame of a Bunsen burner, and the
distilled drops were condensing into a two-litre measure. My friend
hardly glanced up as I entered, and I, seeing that his investigation
must be of importance, seated myself in an arm-chair and waited. He
