The fierce old man said nothing, but still glared at my companion;
with his savage eyes and bristling moustache he was wonderfully like
a tiger himself.
"I wonder that my very simple stratagem could deceive so old a
shikari," said Holmes. "It must be very familiar to you. Have you not
tethered a young kid under a tree, lain above it with your rifle, and
waited for the bait to bring up your tiger? This empty house is my
tree and you are my tiger. You have possibly had other guns in
reserve in case there should be several tigers, or in the unlikely
supposition of your own aim failing you. These," he pointed around,
"are my other guns. The parallel is exact."
Colonel Moran sprang forward, with a snarl of rage, but the
constables dragged him back. The fury upon his face was terrible to
look at.
"I confess that you had one small surprise for me," said Holmes. "I
did not anticipate that you would yourself make use of this empty
house and this convenient front window. I had imagined you as
operating from the street, where my friend Lestrade and his merry men
were awaiting you. With that exception all has gone as I expected."
Colonel Moran turned to the official detective.
"You may or may not have just cause for arresting me," said he, "but
at least there can be no reason why I should submit to the gibes of
this person. If I am in the hands of the law let things be done in a
legal way."
"Well, that's reasonable enough," said Lestrade. "Nothing further you
have to say, Mr. Holmes, before we go?"
Holmes had picked up the powerful air-gun from the floor and was
examining its mechanism.
"An admirable and unique weapon," said he, "noiseless and of
tremendous power. I knew Von Herder, the blind German mechanic, who
constructed it to the order of the late Professor Moriarty. For years
I have been aware of its existence, though I have never before had
the opportunity of handling it. I commend it very specially to your
attention, Lestrade, and also the bullets which fit it."
"You can trust us to look after that, Mr. Holmes," said Lestrade, as
the whole party moved towards the door. "Anything further to say?"
"Only to ask what charge you intend to prefer?"
"What charge, sir? Why, of course, the attempted murder of Mr.
Sherlock Holmes."
"Not so, Lestrade. I do not propose to appear in the matter at all.
To you, and to you only, belongs the credit of the remarkable arrest
which you have effected. Yes, Lestrade, I congratulate you! With your
usual happy mixture of cunning and audacity you have got him."
"Got him! Got whom, Mr. Holmes?"
"The man that the whole force has been seeking in vain--Colonel
Sebastian Moran, who shot the Honourable Ronald Adair with an
expanding bullet from an air-gun through the open window of the
second-floor front of No. 427, Park Lane, upon the 30th of last
month. That's the charge, Lestrade. And now, Watson, if you can
endure the draught from a broken window, I think that half an hour in
my study over a cigar may afford you some profitable amusement."
Our old chambers had been left unchanged through the supervision of
Mycroft Holmes and the immediate care of Mrs. Hudson. As I entered I
saw, it is true, an unwonted tidiness, but the old landmarks were all
in their place. There were the chemical corner and the acid-stained,
deal-topped table. There upon a shelf was the row of formidable
scrap-books and books of reference which many of our fellow-citizens
would have been so glad to burn. The diagrams, the violin-case, and
the pipe-rack--even the Persian slipper which contained the
tobacco--all met my eyes as I glanced round me. There were two
occupants of the room--one Mrs. Hudson, who beamed upon us both as we
entered; the other the strange dummy which had played so important a
part in the evening's adventures. It was a wax-coloured model of my
friend, so admirably done that it was a perfect facsimile. It stood
on a small pedestal table with an old dressing-gown of Holmes's so
draped round it that the illusion from the street was absolutely
perfect.
"I hope you preserved all precautions, Mrs. Hudson?" said Holmes.
"I went to it on my knees, sir, just as you told me."
"Excellent. You carried the thing out very well. Did you observe
where the bullet went?"
"Yes, sir. I'm afraid it has spoilt your beautiful bust, for it
passed right through the head and flattened itself on the wall. I
picked it up from the carpet. Here it is!"
Holmes held it out to me. "A soft revolver bullet, as you perceive,
Watson. There's genius in that, for who would expect to find such a
thing fired from an air-gun. All right, Mrs. Hudson, I am much
obliged for your assistance. And now, Watson, let me see you in your
old seat once more, for there are several points which I should like
to discuss with you."
He had thrown off the seedy frock-coat, and now he was the Holmes of
old in the mouse-coloured dressing-gown which he took from his
effigy.
"The old shikari's nerves have not lost their steadiness nor his eyes
their keenness," said he, with a laugh, as he inspected the shattered
forehead of his bust.
"Plumb in the middle of the back of the head and smack through the
brain. He was the best shot in India, and I expect that there are few
better in London. Have you heard the name?"
"No, I have not."
"Well, well, such is fame! But, then, if I remember aright, you had
not heard the name of Professor James Moriarty, who had one of the
great brains of the century. Just give me down my index of
biographies from the shelf."
He turned over the pages lazily, leaning back in his chair and
blowing great clouds from his cigar.
"My collection of M's is a fine one," said he. "Moriarty himself is
enough to make any letter illustrious, and here is Morgan the
poisoner, and Merridew of abominable memory, and Mathews, who knocked
out my left canine in the waiting-room at Charing Cross, and,
finally, here is our friend of to-night."
He handed over the book, and I read:
Moran, Sebastian, Colonel. Unemployed. Formerly 1st Bengalore
Pioneers. Born London, 1840. Son of Sir Augustus Moran, C.B., once
British Minister to Persia. Educated Eton and Oxford. Served in
Jowaki Campaign, Afghan Campaign, Charasiab (despatches), Sherpur,
and Cabul. Author of Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas, 1881; Three
Months in the Jungle, 1884. Address: Conduit Street. Clubs: The
Anglo-Indian, the Tankerville, the Bagatelle Card Club.
On the margin was written, in Holmes's precise hand:
The second most dangerous man in London.
"This is astonishing," said I, as I handed back the volume. "The
man's career is that of an honourable soldier."
"It is true," Holmes answered. "Up to a certain point he did well. He
was always a man of iron nerve, and the story is still told in India
how he crawled down a drain after a wounded man-eating tiger. There
are some trees, Watson, which grow to a certain height and then
suddenly develop some unsightly eccentricity. You will see it often
in humans. I have a theory that the individual represents in his
development the whole procession of his ancestors, and that such a
sudden turn to good or evil stands for some strong influence which
came into the line of his pedigree. The person becomes, as it were,
the epitome of the history of his own family."
"It is surely rather fanciful."
"Well, I don't insist upon it. Whatever the cause, Colonel Moran
began to go wrong. Without any open scandal he still made India too
hot to hold him. He retired, came to London, and again acquired an
evil name. It was at this time that he was sought out by Professor
Moriarty, to whom for a time he was chief of the staff. Moriarty
supplied him liberally with money and used him only in one or two
very high-class jobs which no ordinary criminal could have
undertaken. You may have some recollection of the death of Mrs.
Stewart, of Lauder, in 1887. Not? Well, I am sure Moran was at the
bottom of it; but nothing could be proved. So cleverly was the
Colonel concealed that even when the Moriarty gang was broken up we
could not incriminate him. You remember at that date, when I called
upon you in your rooms, how I put up the shutters for fear of
air-guns? No doubt you thought me fanciful. I knew exactly what I was
doing, for I knew of the existence of this remarkable gun, and I knew
also that one of the best shots in the world would be behind it. When
we were in Switzerland he followed us with Moriarty, and it was
undoubtedly he who gave me that evil five minutes on the Reichenbach
ledge.
"You may think that I read the papers with some attention during my
sojourn in France, on the look-out for any chance of laying him by
the heels. So long as he was free in London my life would really not
have been worth living. Night and day the shadow would have been over
me, and sooner or later his chance must have come. What could I do? I
could not shoot him at sight, or I should myself be in the dock.
There was no use appealing to a magistrate. They cannot interfere on
the strength of what would appear to them to be a wild suspicion. So
I could do nothing. But I watched the criminal news, knowing that
sooner or later I should get him. Then came the death of this Ronald
Adair. My chance had come at last! Knowing what I did, was it not
certain that Colonel Moran had done it? He had played cards with the
lad; he had followed him home from the club; he had shot him through
the open window. There was not a doubt of it. The bullets alone are
enough to put his head in a noose. I came over at once. I was seen by
the sentinel, who would, I knew, direct the Colonel's attention to my
presence. He could not fail to connect my sudden return with his
crime and to be terribly alarmed. I was sure that he would make an
attempt to get me out of the way at once, and would bring round his
murderous weapon for that purpose. I left him an excellent mark in
the window, and, having warned the police that they might be
needed--by the way, Watson, you spotted their presence in that
doorway with unerring accuracy--I took up what seemed to me to be a
judicious post for observation, never dreaming that he would choose
the same spot for his attack. Now, my dear Watson, does anything
remain for me to explain?"
"Yes," said I. "You have not made it clear what was Colonel Moran's
motive in murdering the Honourable Ronald Adair."
"Ah! my dear Watson, there we come into those realms of conjecture
where the most logical mind may be at fault. Each may form his own
hypothesis upon the present evidence, and yours is as likely to be
correct as mine."
"You have formed one, then?"
"I think that it is not difficult to explain the facts. It came out
in evidence that Colonel Moran and young Adair had between them won a
considerable amount of money. Now, Moran undoubtedly played foul--of
that I have long been aware. I believe that on the day of the murder
Adair had discovered that Moran was cheating. Very likely he had
spoken to him privately, and had threatened to expose him unless he
voluntarily resigned his membership of the club and promised not to
play cards again. It is unlikely that a youngster like Adair would at
once make a hideous scandal by exposing a well-known man so much
older than himself. Probably he acted as I suggest. The exclusion
from his clubs would mean ruin to Moran, who lived by his ill-gotten
card gains. He therefore murdered Adair, who at the time was
endeavouring to work out how much money he should himself return,
since he could not profit by his partner's foul play. He locked the
door lest the ladies should surprise him and insist upon knowing what
he was doing with these names and coins. Will it pass?"
"I have no doubt that you have hit upon the truth."
"It will be verified or disproved at the trial. Meanwhile, come what
may, Colonel Moran will trouble us no more, the famous air-gun of Von
Herder will embellish the Scotland Yard Museum, and once again Mr.
Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those
interesting little problems which the complex life of London so
plentifully presents."
THE ADVENTURE OF THE NORWOOD BUILDER
"From the point of view of the criminal expert," said Mr. Sherlock
Holmes, "London has become a singularly uninteresting city since the
death of the late lamented Professor Moriarty."
"I can hardly think that you would find many decent citizens to agree
with you," I answered.
"Well, well, I must not be selfish," said he, with a smile, as he
pushed back his chair from the breakfast-table. "The community is
certainly the gainer, and no one the loser, save the poor out-of-work
