doubted who it was. It was the worst enemy I had among them all--one
who has been after me like a hungry wolf after a caribou all these
years. I knew there was trouble coming, and I came home and made
ready for it. I guessed I'd fight through it all right on my own, my
luck was a proverb in the States about '76. I never doubted that it
would be with me still.
"I was on my guard all that next day, and never went out into the
park. It's as well, or he'd have had the drop on me with that
buckshot gun of his before ever I could draw on him. After the bridge
was up--my mind was always more restful when that bridge was up in
the evenings--I put the thing clear out of my head. I never dreamed
of his getting into the house and waiting for me. But when I made my
round in my dressing gown, as was my habit, I had no sooner entered
the study than I scented danger. I guess when a man has had dangers
in his life--and I've had more than most in my time--there is a kind
of sixth sense that waves the red flag. I saw the signal clear
enough, and yet I couldn't tell you why. Next instant I spotted a
boot under the window curtain, and then I saw why plain enough.
"I'd just the one candle that was in my hand; but there was a good
light from the hall lamp through the open door. I put down the candle
and jumped for a hammer that I'd left on the mantel. At the same
moment he sprang at me. I saw the glint of a knife, and I lashed at
him with the hammer. I got him somewhere; for the knife tinkled down
on the floor. He dodged round the table as quick as an eel, and a
moment later he'd got his gun from under his coat. I heard him cock
it; but I had got hold of it before he could fire. I had it by the
barrel, and we wrestled for it all ends up for a minute or more. It
was death to the man that lost his grip.
"He never lost his grip; but he got it butt downward for a moment too
long. Maybe it was I that pulled the trigger. Maybe we just jolted it
off between us. Anyhow, he got both barrels in the face, and there I
was, staring down at all that was left of Ted Baldwin. I'd recognized
him in the township, and again when he sprang for me; but his own
mother wouldn't recognize him as I saw him then. I'm used to rough
work; but I fairly turned sick at the sight of him.
"I was hanging on the side of the table when Barker came hurrying
down. I heard my wife coming, and I ran to the door and stopped her.
It was no sight for a woman. I promised I'd come to her soon. I said
a word or two to Barker--he took it all in at a glance--and we waited
for the rest to come along. But there was no sign of them. Then we
understood that they could hear nothing, and that all that had
happened was known only to ourselves.
"It was at that instant that the idea came to me. I was fairly
dazzled by the brilliance of it. The man's sleeve had slipped up and
there was the branded mark of the lodge upon his forearm. See here!"
The man whom we had known as Douglas turned up his own coat and cuff
to show a brown triangle within a circle exactly like that which we
had seen upon the dead man.
"It was the sight of that which started me on it. I seemed to see it
all clear at a glance. There were his height and hair and figure,
about the same as my own. No one could swear to his face, poor devil!
I brought down this suit of clothes, and in a quarter of an hour
Barker and I had put my dressing gown on him and he lay as you found
him. We tied all his things into a bundle, and I weighted them with
the only weight I could find and put them through the window. The
card he had meant to lay upon my body was lying beside his own.
"My rings were put on his finger; but when it came to the wedding
ring," he held out his muscular hand, "you can see for yourselves
that I had struck the limit. I have not moved it since the day I was
married, and it would have taken a file to get it off. I don't know,
anyhow, that I should have cared to part with it; but if I had wanted
to I couldn't. So we just had to leave that detail to take care of
itself. On the other hand, I brought a bit of plaster down and put it
where I am wearing one myself at this instant. You slipped up there,
Mr. Holmes, clever as you are; for if you had chanced to take off
that plaster you would have found no cut underneath it.
"Well, that was the situation. If I could lie low for a while and
then get away where I could be joined by my 'widow' we should have a
chance at last of living in peace for the rest of our lives. These
devils would give me no rest so long as I was above ground; but if
they saw in the papers that Baldwin had got his man, there would be
an end of all my troubles. I hadn't much time to make it all clear to
Barker and to my wife; but they understood enough to be able to help
me. I knew all about this hiding place, so did Ames; but it never
entered his head to connect it with the matter. I retired into it,
and it was up to Barker to do the rest.
"I guess you can fill in for yourselves what he did. He opened the
window and made the mark on the sill to give an idea of how the
murderer escaped. It was a tall order, that; but as the bridge was up
there was no other way. Then, when everything was fixed, he rang the
bell for all he was worth. What happened afterward you know. And so,
gentlemen, you can do what you please; but I've told you the truth
and the whole truth, so help me God! What I ask you now is how do I
stand by the English law?"
There was a silence which was broken by Sherlock Holmes.
"The English law is in the main a just law. You will get no worse
than your deserts from that, Mr. Douglas. But I would ask you how did
this man know that you lived here, or how to get into your house, or
where to hide to get you?"
"I know nothing of this."
Holmes's face was very white and grave. "The story is not over yet, I
fear," said he. "You may find worse dangers than the English law, or
even than your enemies from America. I see trouble before you, Mr.
Douglas. You'll take my advice and still be on your guard."
And now, my long-suffering readers, I will ask you to come away with
me for a time, far from the Sussex Manor House of Birlstone, and far
also from the year of grace in which we made our eventful journey
which ended with the strange story of the man who had been known as
John Douglas. I wish you to journey back some twenty years in time,
and westward some thousands of miles in space, that I may lay before
you a singular and terrible narrative--so singular and so terrible
that you may find it hard to believe that even as I tell it, even so
did it occur.
Do not think that I intrude one story before another is finished. As
you read on you will find that this is not so. And when I have
detailed those distant events and you have solved this mystery of the
past, we shall meet once more in those rooms on Baker Street, where
this, like so many other wonderful happenings, will find its end.
PART II
The Scowrers
CHAPTER I
The Man
It was the fourth of February in the year 1875. It had been a severe
winter, and the snow lay deep in the gorges of the Gilmerton
Mountains. The steam ploughs had, however, kept the railroad open,
and the evening train which connects the long line of coal-mining and
iron-working settlements was slowly groaning its way up the steep
gradients which lead from Stagville on the plain to Vermissa, the
central township which lies at the head of Vermissa Valley. From this
point the track sweeps downward to Bartons Crossing, Helmdale, and
the purely agricultural county of Merton. It was a single-track
railroad; but at every siding--and they were numerous--long lines of
trucks piled with coal and iron ore told of the hidden wealth which
had brought a rude population and a bustling life to this most
desolate corner of the United States of America.
For desolate it was! Little could the first pioneer who had traversed
it have ever imagined that the fairest prairies and the most lush
water pastures were valueless compared to this gloomy land of black
crag and tangled forest. Above the dark and often scarcely penetrable
woods upon their flanks, the high, bare crowns of the mountains,
white snow, and jagged rock towered upon each flank, leaving a long,
winding, tortuous valley in the centre. Up this the little train was
slowly crawling.
The oil lamps had just been lit in the leading passenger car, a long,
bare carriage in which some twenty or thirty people were seated. The
greater number of these were workmen returning from their day's toil
in the lower part of the valley. At least a dozen, by their grimed
faces and the safety lanterns which they carried, proclaimed
themselves miners. These sat smoking in a group and conversed in low
voices, glancing occasionally at two men on the opposite side of the
car, whose uniforms and badges showed them to be policemen.
Several women of the labouring class and one or two travellers who
might have been small local storekeepers made up the rest of the
company, with the exception of one young man in a corner by himself.
It is with this man that we are concerned. Take a good look at him,
for he is worth it.
He is a fresh-complexioned, middle-sized young man, not far, one
would guess, from his thirtieth year. He has large, shrewd, humorous
gray eyes which twinkle inquiringly from time to time as he looks
round through his spectacles at the people about him. It is easy to
see that he is of a sociable and possibly simple disposition, anxious
to be friendly to all men. Anyone could pick him at once as
gregarious in his habits and communicative in his nature, with a
quick wit and a ready smile. And yet the man who studied him more
closely might discern a certain firmness of jaw and grim tightness
about the lips which would warn him that there were depths beyond,
and that this pleasant, brown-haired young Irishman might conceivably
leave his mark for good or evil upon any society to which he was
introduced.
Having made one or two tentative remarks to the nearest miner, and
receiving only short, gruff replies, the traveller resigned himself
to uncongenial silence, staring moodily out of the window at the
fading landscape.
It was not a cheering prospect. Through the growing gloom there
pulsed the red glow of the furnaces on the sides of the hills. Great
heaps of slag and dumps of cinders loomed up on each side, with the
high shafts of the collieries towering above them. Huddled groups of
mean, wooden houses, the windows of which were beginning to outline
themselves in light, were scattered here and there along the line,
and the frequent halting places were crowded with their swarthy
inhabitants.
The iron and coal valleys of the Vermissa district were no resorts
for the leisured or the cultured. Everywhere there were stern signs
of the crudest battle of life, the rude work to be done, and the
rude, strong workers who did it.
The young traveller gazed out into this dismal country with a face of
mingled repulsion and interest, which showed that the scene was new
to him. At intervals he drew from his pocket a bulky letter to which
he referred, and on the margins of which he scribbled some notes.
Once from the back of his waist he produced something which one would
hardly have expected to find in the possession of so mild-mannered a
man. It was a navy revolver of the largest size. As he turned it
slantwise to the light, the glint upon the rims of the copper shells
within the drum showed that it was fully loaded. He quickly restored
it to his secret pocket, but not before it had been observed by a
working man who had seated himself upon the adjoining bench.
"Hullo, mate!" said he. "You seem heeled and ready."
The young man smiled with an air of embarrassment.
"Yes," said he, "we need them sometimes in the place I come from."
"And where may that be?"
"I'm last from Chicago."
"A stranger in these parts?"
"Yes."
"You may find you need it here," said the workman.
"Ah! is that so?" The young man seemed interested.
"Have you heard nothing of doings hereabouts?"
"Nothing out of the way."
"Why, I thought the country was full of it. You'll hear quick enough.
What made you come here?"
"I heard there was always work for a willing man."
"Are you a member of the union?"
"Sure."
"Then you'll get your job, I guess. Have you any friends?"
"Not yet; but I have the means of making them."
"How's that, then?"
"I am one of the Eminent Order of Freemen. There's no town without a
lodge, and where there is a lodge I'll find my friends."
The remark had a singular effect upon his companion. He glanced round
suspiciously at the others in the car. The miners were still
