at every subsequent street corner he took the utmost pains to assure
that he was not followed. Our route was certainly a singular one.
Holmes's knowledge of the byways of London was extraordinary, and on
this occasion he passed rapidly, and with an assured step, through a
network of mews and stables the very existence of which I had never
known. We emerged at last into a small road, lined with old, gloomy
houses, which led us into Manchester Street, and so to Blandford
Street. Here he turned swiftly down a narrow passage, passed through
a wooden gate into a deserted yard, and then opened with a key the
back door of a house. We entered together and he closed it behind us.
The place was pitch-dark, but it was evident to me that it was an
empty house. Our feet creaked and crackled over the bare planking,
and my outstretched hand touched a wall from which the paper was
hanging in ribbons. Holmes's cold, thin fingers closed round my wrist
and led me forwards down a long hall, until I dimly saw the murky
fanlight over the door. Here Holmes turned suddenly to the right, and
we found ourselves in a large, square, empty room, heavily shadowed
in the corners, but faintly lit in the centre from the lights of the
street beyond. There was no lamp near and the window was thick with
dust, so that we could only just discern each other's figures within.
My companion put his hand upon my shoulder and his lips close to my
ear.
"Do you know where we are?" he whispered.
"Surely that is Baker Street," I answered, staring through the dim
window.
"Exactly. We are in Camden House, which stands opposite to our own
old quarters."
"But why are we here?"
"Because it commands so excellent a view of that picturesque pile.
Might I trouble you, my dear Watson, to draw a little nearer to the
window, taking every precaution not to show yourself, and then to
look up at our old rooms--the starting-point of so many of our little
adventures? We will see if my three years of absence have entirely
taken away my power to surprise you."
I crept forward and looked across at the familiar window. As my eyes
fell upon it I gave a gasp and a cry of amazement. The blind was down
and a strong light was burning in the room. The shadow of a man who
was seated in a chair within was thrown in hard, black outline upon
the luminous screen of the window. There was no mistaking the poise
of the head, the squareness of the shoulders, the sharpness of the
features. The face was turned half-round, and the effect was that of
one of those black silhouettes which our grandparents loved to frame.
It was a perfect reproduction of Holmes. So amazed was I that I threw
out my hand to make sure that the man himself was standing beside me.
He was quivering with silent laughter.
"Well?" said he.
"Good heavens!" I cried. "It is marvellous."
"I trust that age doth not wither nor custom stale my infinite
variety,'" said he, and I recognised in his voice the joy and pride
which the artist takes in his own creation. "It really is rather like
me, is it not?"
"I should be prepared to swear that it was you."
"The credit of the execution is due to Monsieur Oscar Meunier, of
Grenoble, who spent some days in doing the moulding. It is a bust in
wax. The rest I arranged myself during my visit to Baker Street this
afternoon."
"But why?"
"Because, my dear Watson, I had the strongest possible reason for
wishing certain people to think that I was there when I was really
elsewhere."
"And you thought the rooms were watched?"
"I knew that they were watched."
"By whom?"
"By my old enemies, Watson. By the charming society whose leader lies
in the Reichenbach Fall. You must remember that they knew, and only
they knew, that I was still alive. Sooner or later they believed that
I should come back to my rooms. They watched them continuously, and
this morning they saw me arrive."
"How do you know?"
"Because I recognised their sentinel when I glanced out of my window.
He is a harmless enough fellow, Parker by name, a garroter by trade,
and a remarkable performer upon the Jew's harp. I cared nothing for
him. But I cared a great deal for the much more formidable person who
was behind him, the bosom friend of Moriarty, the man who dropped the
rocks over the cliff, the most cunning and dangerous criminal in
London. That is the man who is after me to-night, Watson, and that is
the man who is quite unaware that we are after him."
My friend's plans were gradually revealing themselves. From this
convenient retreat the watchers were being watched and the trackers
tracked. That angular shadow up yonder was the bait and we were the
hunters. In silence we stood together in the darkness and watched the
hurrying figures who passed and repassed in front of us. Holmes was
silent and motionless; but I could tell that he was keenly alert, and
that his eyes were fixed intently upon the stream of passers-by. It
was a bleak and boisterous night, and the wind whistled shrilly down
the long street. Many people were moving to and fro, most of them
muffled in their coats and cravats. Once or twice it seemed to me
that I had seen the same figure before, and I especially noticed two
men who appeared to be sheltering themselves from the wind in the
doorway of a house some distance up the street. I tried to draw my
companion's attention to them, but he gave a little ejaculation of
impatience and continued to stare into the street. More than once he
fidgeted with his feet and tapped rapidly with his fingers upon the
wall. It was evident to me that he was becoming uneasy and that his
plans were not working out altogether as he had hoped. At last, as
midnight approached and the street gradually cleared, he paced up and
down the room in uncontrollable agitation. I was about to make some
remark to him when I raised my eyes to the lighted window and again
experienced almost as great a surprise as before. I clutched Holmes's
arm and pointed upwards.
"The shadow has moved!" I cried.
It was, indeed, no longer the profile, but the back, which was turned
towards us.
Three years had certainly not smoothed the asperities of his temper
or his impatience with a less active intelligence than his own.
"Of course it has moved," said he. "Am I such a farcical bungler,
Watson, that I should erect an obvious dummy and expect that some of
the sharpest men in Europe would be deceived by it? We have been in
this room two hours, and Mrs. Hudson has made some change in that
figure eight times, or once in every quarter of an hour. She works it
from the front so that her shadow may never be seen. Ah!" He drew in
his breath with a shrill, excited intake. In the dim light I saw his
head thrown forward, his whole attitude rigid with attention.
Outside, the street was absolutely deserted. Those two men might
still be crouching in the doorway, but I could no longer see them.
All was still and dark, save only that brilliant yellow screen in
front of us with the black figure outlined upon its centre. Again in
the utter silence I heard that thin, sibilant note which spoke of
intense suppressed excitement. An instant later he pulled me back
into the blackest corner of the room, and I felt his warning hand
upon my lips. The fingers which clutched me were quivering. Never had
I known my friend more moved, and yet the dark street still stretched
lonely and motionless before us.
But suddenly I was aware of that which his keener senses had already
distinguished. A low, stealthy sound came to my ears, not from the
direction of Baker Street, but from the back of the very house in
which we lay concealed. A door opened and shut. An instant later
steps crept down the passage--steps which were meant to be silent,
but which reverberated harshly through the empty house. Holmes
crouched back against the wall and I did the same, my hand closing
upon the handle of my revolver. Peering through the gloom, I saw the
vague outline of a man, a shade blacker than the blackness of the
open door. He stood for an instant, and then he crept forward,
crouching, menacing, into the room. He was within three yards of us,
this sinister figure, and I had braced myself to meet his spring,
before I realized that he had no idea of our presence. He passed
close beside us, stole over to the window, and very softly and
noiselessly raised it for half a foot. As he sank to the level of
this opening the light of the street, no longer dimmed by the dusty
glass, fell full upon his face. The man seemed to be beside himself
with excitement. His two eyes shone like stars and his features were
working convulsively. He was an elderly man, with a thin, projecting
nose, a high, bald forehead, and a huge grizzled moustache. An
opera-hat was pushed to the back of his head, and an evening dress
shirt-front gleamed out through his open overcoat. His face was gaunt
and swarthy, scored with deep, savage lines. In his hand he carried
what appeared to be a stick, but as he laid it down upon the floor it
gave a metallic clang. Then from the pocket of his overcoat he drew a
bulky object, and he busied himself in some task which ended with a
loud, sharp click, as if a spring or bolt had fallen into its place.
Still kneeling upon the floor he bent forward and threw all his
weight and strength upon some lever, with the result that there came
a long, whirling, grinding noise, ending once more in a powerful
click. He straightened himself then, and I saw that what he held in
his hand was a sort of gun, with a curiously misshapen butt. He
opened it at the breech, put something in, and snapped the
breech-block. Then, crouching down, he rested the end of the barrel
upon the ledge of the open window, and I saw his long moustache droop
over the stock and his eye gleam as it peered along the sights. I
heard a little sigh of satisfaction as he cuddled the butt into his
shoulder, and saw that amazing target, the black man on the yellow
ground, standing clear at the end of his fore sight. For an instant
he was rigid and motionless. Then his finger tightened on the
trigger. There was a strange, loud whiz and a long, silvery tinkle of
broken glass. At that instant Holmes sprang like a tiger on to the
marksman's back and hurled him flat upon his face. He was up again in
a moment, and with convulsive strength he seized Holmes by the
throat; but I struck him on the head with the butt of my revolver and
he dropped again upon the floor. I fell upon him, and as I held him
my comrade blew a shrill call upon a whistle. There was the clatter
of running feet upon the pavement, and two policemen in uniform, with
one plain-clothes detective, rushed through the front entrance and
into the room.
"That you, Lestrade?" said Holmes.
"Yes, Mr. Holmes. I took the job myself. It's good to see you back in
London, sir."
"I think you want a little unofficial help. Three undetected murders
in one year won't do, Lestrade. But you handled the Molesey Mystery
with less than your usual--that's to say, you handled it fairly
well."
We had all risen to our feet, our prisoner breathing hard, with a
stalwart constable on each side of him. Already a few loiterers had
begun to collect in the street. Holmes stepped up to the window,
closed it, and dropped the blinds. Lestrade had produced two candles
and the policemen had uncovered their lanterns. I was able at last to
have a good look at our prisoner.
It was a tremendously virile and yet sinister face which was turned
towards us. With the brow of a philosopher above and the jaw of a
sensualist below, the man must have started with great capacities for
good or for evil. But one could not look upon his cruel blue eyes,
with their drooping, cynical lids, or upon the fierce, aggressive
nose and the threatening, deep-lined brow, without reading Nature's
plainest danger-signals. He took no heed of any of us, but his eyes
were fixed upon Holmes's face with an expression in which hatred and
amazement were equally blended. "You fiend!" he kept on muttering.
"You clever, clever fiend!"
"Ah, Colonel!" said Holmes, arranging his rumpled collar; "'journeys
end in lovers' meetings,' as the old play says. I don't think I have
had the pleasure of seeing you since you favoured me with those
attentions as I lay on the ledge above the Reichenbach Fall."
The Colonel still stared at my friend like a man in a trance. "You
cunning, cunning fiend!" was all that he could say.
"I have not introduced you yet," said Holmes. "This, gentlemen, is
Colonel Sebastian Moran, once of Her Majesty's Indian Army, and the
best heavy game shot that our Eastern Empire has ever produced. I
believe I am correct, Colonel, in saying that your bag of tigers
still remains unrivalled?"
