no name or address appended. I had at that time just entered the
family of Mrs. Cecil Forrester in the capacity of governess. By her
advice I published my address in the advertisement column. The same
day there arrived through the post a small card-board box addressed
to me, which I found to contain a very large and lustrous pearl. No
word of writing was enclosed. Since then every year upon the same
date there has always appeared a similar box, containing a similar
pearl, without any clue as to the sender. They have been pronounced
by an expert to be of a rare variety and of considerable value. You
can see for yourselves that they are very handsome." She opened a
flat box as she spoke, and showed me six of the finest pearls that I
had ever seen.
"Your statement is most interesting," said Sherlock Holmes. "Has
anything else occurred to you?"
"Yes, and no later than to-day. That is why I have come to you. This
morning I received this letter, which you will perhaps read for
yourself."
"Thank you," said Holmes. "The envelope too, please. Postmark,
London, S.W. Date, July 7. Hum! Man's thumb-mark on corner,--probably
postman. Best quality paper. Envelopes at sixpence a packet.
Particular man in his stationery. No address. 'Be at the third pillar
from the left outside the Lyceum Theatre to-night at seven o'clock.
If you are distrustful, bring two friends. You are a wronged woman,
and shall have justice. Do not bring police. If you do, all will be
in vain. Your unknown friend.' Well, really, this is a very pretty
little mystery. What do you intend to do, Miss Morstan?"
"That is exactly what I want to ask you."
"Then we shall most certainly go. You and I and--yes, why, Dr.
Watson is the very man. Your correspondent says two friends. He and I
have worked together before."
"But would he come?" she asked, with something appealing in her voice
and expression.
"I should be proud and happy," said I, fervently, "if I can be of any
service."
"You are both very kind," she answered. "I have led a retired life,
and have no friends whom I could appeal to. If I am here at six it
will do, I suppose?"
"You must not be later," said Holmes. "There is one other point,
however. Is this handwriting the same as that upon the pearl-box
addresses?"
"I have them here," she answered, producing half a dozen pieces of
paper.
"You are certainly a model client. You have the correct intuition.
Let us see, now." He spread out the papers upon the table, and gave
little darting glances from one to the other. "They are disguised
hands, except the letter," he said, presently, "but there can be no
question as to the authorship. See how the irrepressible Greek e will
break out, and see the twirl of the final s. They are undoubtedly by
the same person. I should not like to suggest false hopes, Miss
Morstan, but is there any resemblance between this hand and that of
your father?"
"Nothing could be more unlike."
"I expected to hear you say so. We shall look out for you, then, at
six. Pray allow me to keep the papers. I may look into the matter
before then. It is only half-past three. Au revoir, then."
"Au revoir," said our visitor, and, with a bright, kindly glance from
one to the other of us, she replaced her pearl-box in her bosom and
hurried away. Standing at the window, I watched her walking briskly
down the street, until the gray turban and white feather were but a
speck in the sombre crowd.
"What a very attractive woman!" I exclaimed, turning to my companion.
He had lit his pipe again, and was leaning back with drooping
eyelids. "Is she?" he said, languidly. "I did not observe."
"You really are an automaton,--a calculating-machine!" I cried.
"There is something positively inhuman in you at times."
He smiled gently. "It is of the first importance," he said, "not to
allow your judgment to be biased by personal qualities. A client is
to me a mere unit,--a factor in a problem. The emotional qualities
are antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most
winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little
children for their insurance-money, and the most repellant man of my
acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a
million upon the London poor."
"In this case, however--"
"I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule. Have you
ever had occasion to study character in handwriting? What do you make
of this fellow's scribble?"
"It is legible and regular," I answered. "A man of business habits
and some force of character."
Holmes shook his head. "Look at his long letters," he said. "They
hardly rise above the common herd. That d might be an a, and that l
an e. Men of character always differentiate their long letters,
however illegibly they may write. There is vacillation in his k's and
self-esteem in his capitals. I am going out now. I have some few
references to make. Let me recommend this book,--one of the most
remarkable ever penned. It is Winwood Reade's Martyrdom of Man. I
shall be back in an hour."
I sat in the window with the volume in my hand, but my thoughts were
far from the daring speculations of the writer. My mind ran upon our
late visitor,--her smiles, the deep rich tones of her voice, the
strange mystery which overhung her life. If she were seventeen at the
time of her father's disappearance she must be seven-and-twenty
now,--a sweet age, when youth has lost its self-consciousness and
become a little sobered by experience. So I sat and mused, until such
dangerous thoughts came into my head that I hurried away to my desk
and plunged furiously into the latest treatise upon pathology. What
was I, an army surgeon with a weak leg and a weaker banking-account,
that I should dare to think of such things? She was a unit, a
factor,--nothing more. If my future were black, it was better surely
to face it like a man than to attempt to brighten it by mere
will-o'-the-wisps of the imagination.
CHAPTER III
In Quest of a Solution
It was half-past five before Holmes returned. He was bright, eager,
and in excellent spirits,--a mood which in his case alternated with
fits of the blackest depression.
"There is no great mystery in this matter," he said, taking the cup
of tea which I had poured out for him. "The facts appear to admit of
only one explanation."
"What! you have solved it already?"
"Well, that would be too much to say. I have discovered a suggestive
fact, that is all. It is, however, very suggestive. The details are
still to be added. I have just found, on consulting the back files of
the Times, that Major Sholto, of Upper Norword, late of the 34th
Bombay Infantry, died upon the 28th of April, 1882."
"I may be very obtuse, Holmes, but I fail to see what this suggests."
"No? You surprise me. Look at it in this way, then. Captain Morstan
disappears. The only person in London whom he could have visited is
Major Sholto. Major Sholto denies having heard that he was in London.
Four years later Sholto dies. Within a week of his death Captain
Morstan's daughter receives a valuable present, which is repeated
from year to year, and now culminates in a letter which describes her
as a wronged woman. What wrong can it refer to except this
deprivation of her father? And why should the presents begin
immediately after Sholto's death, unless it is that Sholto's heir
knows something of the mystery and desires to make compensation? Have
you any alternative theory which will meet the facts?"
"But what a strange compensation! And how strangely made! Why, too,
should he write a letter now, rather than six years ago? Again, the
letter speaks of giving her justice. What justice can she have? It is
too much to suppose that her father is still alive. There is no other
injustice in her case that you know of."
"There are difficulties; there are certainly difficulties," said
Sherlock Holmes, pensively. "But our expedition of to-night will
solve them all. Ah, here is a four-wheeler, and Miss Morstan is
inside. Are you all ready? Then we had better go down, for it is a
little past the hour."
I picked up my hat and my heaviest stick, but I observed that Holmes
took his revolver from his drawer and slipped it into his pocket. It
was clear that he thought that our night's work might be a serious
one.
Miss Morstan was muffled in a dark cloak, and her sensitive face was
composed, but pale. She must have been more than woman if she did not
feel some uneasiness at the strange enterprise upon which we were
embarking, yet her self-control was perfect, and she readily answered
the few additional questions which Sherlock Holmes put to her.
"Major Sholto was a very particular friend of papa's," she said. "His
letters were full of allusions to the major. He and papa were in
command of the troops at the Andaman Islands, so they were thrown a
great deal together. By the way, a curious paper was found in papa's
desk which no one could understand. I don't suppose that it is of the
slightest importance, but I thought you might care to see it, so I
brought it with me. It is here."
Holmes unfolded the paper carefully and smoothed it out upon his
knee. He then very methodically examined it all over with his double
lens.
"It is paper of native Indian manufacture," he remarked. "It has at
some time been pinned to a board. The diagram upon it appears to be a
plan of part of a large building with numerous halls, corridors, and
passages. At one point is a small cross done in red ink, and above it
is '3.37 from left,' in faded pencil-writing. In the left-hand
corner is a curious hieroglyphic like four crosses in a line with
their arms touching. Beside it is written, in very rough and coarse
characters, 'The sign of the four,--Jonathan Small, Mahomet Singh,
Abdullah Khan, Dost Akbar.' No, I confess that I do not see how this
bears upon the matter. Yet it is evidently a document of importance.
It has been kept carefully in a pocket-book; for the one side is as
clean as the other."
"It was in his pocket-book that we found it."
"Preserve it carefully, then, Miss Morstan, for it may prove to be of
use to us. I begin to suspect that this matter may turn out to be
much deeper and more subtle than I at first supposed. I must
reconsider my ideas." He leaned back in the cab, and I could see by
his drawn brow and his vacant eye that he was thinking intently. Miss
Morstan and I chatted in an undertone about our present expedition
and its possible outcome, but our companion maintained his
impenetrable reserve until the end of our journey.
It was a September evening, and not yet seven o'clock, but the day
had been a dreary one, and a dense drizzly fog lay low upon the great
city. Mud-colored clouds drooped sadly over the muddy streets. Down
the Strand the lamps were but misty splotches of diffused light which
threw a feeble circular glimmer upon the slimy pavement. The yellow
glare from the shop-windows streamed out into the steamy, vaporous
air, and threw a murky, shifting radiance across the crowded
thoroughfare. There was, to my mind, something eerie and ghost-like
in the endless procession of faces which flitted across these narrow
bars of light,--sad faces and glad, haggard and merry. Like all human
kind, they flitted from the gloom into the light, and so back into
the gloom once more. I am not subject to impressions, but the dull,
heavy evening, with the strange business upon which we were engaged,
combined to make me nervous and depressed. I could see from Miss
Morstan's manner that she was suffering from the same feeling. Holmes
alone could rise superior to petty influences. He held his open
note-book upon his knee, and from time to time he jotted down figures
and memoranda in the light of his pocket-lantern.
At the Lyceum Theatre the crowds were already thick at the
side-entrances. In front a continuous stream of hansoms and
four-wheelers were rattling up, discharging their cargoes of
shirt-fronted men and beshawled, bediamonded women. We had hardly
reached the third pillar, which was our rendezvous, before a small,
dark, brisk man in the dress of a coachman accosted us.
"Are you the parties who come with Miss Morstan?" he asked.
"I am Miss Morstan, and these two gentlemen are my friends," said
she.
He bent a pair of wonderfully penetrating and questioning eyes upon
us. "You will excuse me, miss," he said with a certain dogged manner,
"but I was to ask you to give me your word that neither of your
companions is a police-officer."
