knowledge of the whole business, but I had not a case which could go
to a jury. Even Stapleton's attempt upon Sir Henry that night which
ended in the death of the unfortunate convict did not help us much in
proving murder against our man. There seemed to be no alternative but
to catch him red-handed, and to do so we had to use Sir Henry, alone
and apparently unprotected, as a bait. We did so, and at the cost of
a severe shock to our client we succeeded in completing our case and
driving Stapleton to his destruction. That Sir Henry should have been
exposed to this is, I must confess, a reproach to my management of
the case, but we had no means of foreseeing the terrible and
paralyzing spectacle which the beast presented, nor could we predict
the fog which enabled him to burst upon us at such short notice. We
succeeded in our object at a cost which both the specialist and Dr.
Mortimer assure me will be a temporary one. A long journey may enable
our friend to recover not only from his shattered nerves but also
from his wounded feelings. His love for the lady was deep and
sincere, and to him the saddest part of all this black business was
that he should have been deceived by her.
"It only remains to indicate the part which she had played
throughout. There can be no doubt that Stapleton exercised an
influence over her which may have been love or may have been fear, or
very possibly both, since they are by no means incompatible emotions.
It was, at least, absolutely effective. At his command she consented
to pass as his sister, though he found the limits of his power over
her when he endeavoured to make her the direct accessory to murder.
She was ready to warn Sir Henry so far as she could without
implicating her husband, and again and again she tried to do so.
Stapleton himself seems to have been capable of jealousy, and when he
saw the baronet paying court to the lady, even though it was part of
his own plan, still he could not help interrupting with a passionate
outburst which revealed the fiery soul which his self-contained
manner so cleverly concealed. By encouraging the intimacy he made it
certain that Sir Henry would frequently come to Merripit House and
that he would sooner or later get the opportunity which he desired.
On the day of the crisis, however, his wife turned suddenly against
him. She had learned something of the death of the convict, and she
knew that the hound was being kept in the out-house on the evening
that Sir Henry was coming to dinner. She taxed her husband with his
intended crime, and a furious scene followed, in which he showed her
for the first time that she had a rival in his love. Her fidelity
turned in an instant to bitter hatred and he saw that she would
betray him. He tied her up, therefore, that she might have no chance
of warning Sir Henry, and he hoped, no doubt, that when the whole
country-side put down the baronet's death to the curse of his family,
as they certainly would do, he could win his wife back to accept an
accomplished fact and to keep silent upon what she knew. In this I
fancy that in any case he made a miscalculation, and that, if we had
not been there, his doom would none the less have been sealed. A
woman of Spanish blood does not condone such an injury so lightly.
And now, my dear Watson, without referring to my notes, I cannot give
you a more detailed account of this curious case. I do not know that
anything essential has been left unexplained."
"He could not hope to frighten Sir Henry to death as he had done the
old uncle with his bogie hound."
"The beast was savage and half-starved. If its appearance did not
frighten its victim to death, at least it would paralyze the
resistance which might be offered."
"No doubt. There only remains one difficulty. If Stapleton came into
the succession, how could he explain the fact that he, the heir, had
been living unannounced under another name so close to the property?
How could he claim it without causing suspicion and inquiry?"
"It is a formidable difficulty, and I fear that you ask too much when
you expect me to solve it. The past and the present are within the
field of my inquiry, but what a man may do in the future is a hard
question to answer. Mrs. Stapleton has heard her husband discuss the
problem on several occasions. There were three possible courses. He
might claim the property from South America, establish his identity
before the British authorities there and so obtain the fortune
without ever coming to England at all; or he might adopt an elaborate
disguise during the short time that he need be in London; or, again,
he might furnish an accomplice with the proofs and papers, putting
him in as heir, and retaining a claim upon some proportion of his
income. We cannot doubt from what we know of him that he would have
found some way out of the difficulty. And now, my dear Watson, we
have had some weeks of severe work, and for one evening, I think, we
may turn our thoughts into more pleasant channels. I have a box for
'Les Huguenots.' Have you heard the De Reszkes? Might I trouble you
then to be ready in half an hour, and we can stop at Marcini's for a
little dinner on the way?"
THE VALLEY OF FEAR
Table of contents
Part I
The Warning
Sherlock Holmes Discourses
The Tragedy of Birlstone
Darkness
The People Of the Drama
A Dawning Light
The Solution
Part II
The Man
The Bodymaster
Lodge 341, Vermissa
The Valley of Fear
The Darkest Hour
Danger
The Trapping of Birdy Edwards
Epilogue
PART I
The Tragedy of Birlstone
CHAPTER I
The Warning
"I am inclined to think--" said I.
"I should do so," Sherlock Holmes remarked impatiently.
I believe that I am one of the most long-suffering of mortals; but
I'll admit that I was annoyed at the sardonic interruption.
"Really, Holmes," said I severely, "you are a little trying at
times."
He was too much absorbed with his own thoughts to give any immediate
answer to my remonstrance. He leaned upon his hand, with his untasted
breakfast before him, and he stared at the slip of paper which he had
just drawn from its envelope. Then he took the envelope itself, held
it up to the light, and very carefully studied both the exterior and
the flap.
"It is Porlock's writing," said he thoughtfully. "I can hardly doubt
that it is Porlock's writing, though I have seen it only twice
before. The Greek e with the peculiar top flourish is distinctive.
But if it is Porlock, then it must be something of the very first
importance."
He was speaking to himself rather than to me; but my vexation
disappeared in the interest which the words awakened.
"Who then is Porlock?" I asked.
"Porlock, Watson, is a nom-de-plume, a mere identification mark; but
behind it lies a shifty and evasive personality. In a former letter
he frankly informed me that the name was not his own, and defied me
ever to trace him among the teeming millions of this great city.
Porlock is important, not for himself, but for the great man with
whom he is in touch. Picture to yourself the pilot fish with the
shark, the jackal with the lion--anything that is insignificant in
companionship with what is formidable: not only formidable, Watson,
but sinister--in the highest degree sinister. That is where he comes
within my purview. You have heard me speak of Professor Moriarty?"
"The famous scientific criminal, as famous among crooks as--"
"My blushes, Watson!" Holmes murmured in a deprecating voice.
"I was about to say, as he is unknown to the public."
"A touch! A distinct touch!" cried Holmes. "You are developing a
certain unexpected vein of pawky humour, Watson, against which I must
learn to guard myself. But in calling Moriarty a criminal you are
uttering libel in the eyes of the law--and there lie the glory and
the wonder of it! The greatest schemer of all time, the organizer of
every deviltry, the controlling brain of the underworld, a brain
which might have made or marred the destiny of nations--that's the
man! But so aloof is he from general suspicion, so immune from
criticism, so admirable in his management and self-effacement, that
for those very words that you have uttered he could hale you to a
court and emerge with your year's pension as a solatium for his
wounded character. Is he not the celebrated author of The Dynamics of
an Asteroid, a book which ascends to such rarefied heights of pure
mathematics that it is said that there was no man in the scientific
press capable of criticizing it? Is this a man to traduce?
Foul-mouthed doctor and slandered professor--such would be your
respective roles! That's genius, Watson. But if I am spared by lesser
men, our day will surely come."
"May I be there to see!" I exclaimed devoutly. "But you were speaking
of this man Porlock."
"Ah, yes--the so-called Porlock is a link in the chain some little
way from its great attachment. Porlock is not quite a sound
link--between ourselves. He is the only flaw in that chain so far as
I have been able to test it."
"But no chain is stronger than its weakest link."
"Exactly, my dear Watson! Hence the extreme importance of Porlock.
Led on by some rudimentary aspirations towards right, and encouraged
by the judicious stimulation of an occasional ten-pound note sent to
him by devious methods, he has once or twice given me advance
information which has been of value--that highest value which
anticipates and prevents rather than avenges crime. I cannot doubt
that, if we had the cipher, we should find that this communication is
of the nature that I indicate."
Again Holmes flattened out the paper upon his unused plate. I rose
and, leaning over him, stared down at the curious inscription, which
ran as follows:
534 C2 13 127 36 31 4 17 21 41
DOUGLAS 109 293 5 37 BIRLSTONE
26 BIRLSTONE 9 47 171
"What do you make of it, Holmes?"
"It is obviously an attempt to convey secret information."
"But what is the use of a cipher message without the cipher?"
"In this instance, none at all."
"Why do you say 'in this instance'?"
"Because there are many ciphers which I would read as easily as I do
the apocrypha of the agony column: such crude devices amuse the
intelligence without fatiguing it. But this is different. It is
clearly a reference to the words in a page of some book. Until I am
told which page and which book I am powerless."
"But why 'Douglas' and 'Birlstone'?"
"Clearly because those are words which were not contained in the page
in question."
"Then why has he not indicated the book?"
"Your native shrewdness, my dear Watson, that innate cunning which is
the delight of your friends, would surely prevent you from inclosing
cipher and message in the same envelope. Should it miscarry, you are
undone. As it is, both have to go wrong before any harm comes from
it. Our second post is now overdue, and I shall be surprised if it
does not bring us either a further letter of explanation, or, as is
more probable, the very volume to which these figures refer."
Holmes's calculation was fulfilled within a very few minutes by the
appearance of Billy, the page, with the very letter which we were
expecting.
"The same writing," remarked Holmes, as he opened the envelope, "and
actually signed," he added in an exultant voice as he unfolded the
epistle. "Come, we are getting on, Watson." His brow clouded,
however, as he glanced over the contents.
"Dear me, this is very disappointing! I fear, Watson, that all our
expectations come to nothing. I trust that the man Porlock will come
to no harm.
"Dear Mr. Holmes [he says]:
"I will go no further in this matter. It is too dangerous--he
suspects me. I can see that he suspects me. He came to me quite
unexpectedly after I had actually addressed this envelope with the
intention of sending you the key to the cipher. I was able to cover
it up. If he had seen it, it would have gone hard with me. But I read
suspicion in his eyes. Please burn the cipher message, which can now
be of no use to you.
"Fred Porlock."
Holmes sat for some little time twisting this letter between his
fingers, and frowning, as he stared into the fire.
"After all," he said at last, "there may be nothing in it. It may be
only his guilty conscience. Knowing himself to be a traitor, he may
have read the accusation in the other's eyes."
"The other being, I presume, Professor Moriarty."
"No less! When any of that party talk about 'He' you know whom they
