that. But it's over to-night, thank God, and I am the winner!"
The seven pale, rigid faces looked up at him. There was unappeasable
hatred in their eyes. He read the relentless threat.
"Maybe you think that the game is not over yet. Well, I take my
chance of that. Anyhow, some of you will take no further hand, and
there are sixty more besides yourselves that will see a jail this
night. I'll tell you this, that when I was put upon this job I never
believed there was such a society as yours. I thought it was paper
talk, and that I would prove it so. They told me it was to do with
the Freemen; so I went to Chicago and was made one. Then I was surer
than ever that it was just paper talk; for I found no harm in the
society, but a deal of good.
"Still, I had to carry out my job, and I came to the coal valleys.
When I reached this place I learned that I was wrong and that it
wasn't a dime novel after all. So I stayed to look after it. I never
killed a man in Chicago. I never minted a dollar in my life. Those I
gave you were as good as any others; but I never spent money better.
But I knew the way into your good wishes and so I pretended to you
that the law was after me. It all worked just as I thought.
"So I joined your infernal lodge, and I took my share in your
councils. Maybe they will say that I was as bad as you. They can say
what they like, so long as I get you. But what is the truth? The
night I joined you beat up old man Stanger. I could not warn him, for
there was no time; but I held your hand, Baldwin, when you would have
killed him. If ever I have suggested things, so as to keep my place
among you, they were things which I knew I could prevent. I could not
save Dunn and Menzies, for I did not know enough; but I will see that
their murderers are hanged. I gave Chester Wilcox warning, so that
when I blew his house in he and his folk were in hiding. There was
many a crime that I could not stop; but if you look back and think
how often your man came home the other road, or was down in town when
you went for him, or stayed indoors when you thought he would come
out, you'll see my work."
"You blasted traitor!" hissed McGinty through his closed teeth.
"Ay, John McGinty, you may call me that if it eases your smart. You
and your like have been the enemy of God and man in these parts. It
took a man to get between you and the poor devils of men and women
that you held under your grip. There was just one way of doing it,
and I did it. You call me a traitor; but I guess there's many a
thousand will call me a deliverer that went down into hell to save
them. I've had three months of it. I wouldn't have three such months
again if they let me loose in the treasury at Washington for it. I
had to stay till I had it all, every man and every secret right here
in this hand. I'd have waited a little longer if it hadn't come to my
knowledge that my secret was coming out. A letter had come into the
town that would have set you wise to it all. Then I had to act and
act quickly.
"I've nothing more to say to you, except that when my time comes I'll
die the easier when I think of the work I have done in this valley.
Now, Marvin, I'll keep you no more. Take them in and get it over."
There is little more to tell. Scanlan had been given a sealed note to
be left at the address of Miss Ettie Shafter, a mission which he had
accepted with a wink and a knowing smile. In the early hours of the
morning a beautiful woman and a much muffled man boarded a special
train which had been sent by the railroad company, and made a swift,
unbroken journey out of the land of danger. It was the last time that
ever either Ettie or her lover set foot in the Valley of Fear. Ten
days later they were married in Chicago, with old Jacob Shafter as
witness of the wedding.
The trial of the Scowrers was held far from the place where their
adherents might have terrified the guardians of the law. In vain they
struggled. In vain the money of the lodge--money squeezed by
blackmail out of the whole countryside--was spent like water in the
attempt to save them. That cold, clear, unimpassioned statement from
one who knew every detail of their lives, their organization, and
their crimes was unshaken by all the wiles of their defenders. At
last after so many years they were broken and scattered. The cloud
was lifted forever from the valley.
McGinty met his fate upon the scaffold, cringing and whining when the
last hour came. Eight of his chief followers shared his fate.
Fifty-odd had various degrees of imprisonment. The work of Birdy
Edwards was complete.
And yet, as he had guessed, the game was not over yet. There was
another hand to be played, and yet another and another. Ted Baldwin,
for one, had escaped the scaffold; so had the Willabys; so had
several others of the fiercest spirits of the gang. For ten years
they were out of the world, and then came a day when they were free
once more--a day which Edwards, who knew his men, was very sure would
be an end of his life of peace. They had sworn an oath on all that
they thought holy to have his blood as a vengeance for their
comrades. And well they strove to keep their vow!
From Chicago he was chased, after two attempts so near success that
it was sure that the third would get him. From Chicago he went under
a changed name to California, and it was there that the light went
for a time out of his life when Ettie Edwards died. Once again he was
nearly killed, and once again under the name of Douglas he worked in
a lonely canyon, where with an English partner named Barker he
amassed a fortune. At last there came a warning to him that the
bloodhounds were on his track once more, and he cleared--only just in
time--for England. And thence came the John Douglas who for a second
time married a worthy mate, and lived for five years as a Sussex
county gentleman, a life which ended with the strange happenings of
which we have heard.
CHAPTER VIII
Epilogue
The police trial had passed, in which the case of John Douglas was
referred to a higher court. So had the Quarter Sessions, at which he
was acquitted as having acted in self-defense.
"Get him out of England at any cost," wrote Holmes to the wife.
"There are forces here which may be more dangerous than those he has
escaped. There is no safety for your husband in England."
Two months had gone by, and the case had to some extent passed from
our minds. Then one morning there came an enigmatic note slipped into
our letter box. "Dear me, Mr. Holmes. Dear me!" said this singular
epistle. There was neither superscription nor signature. I laughed at
the quaint message; but Holmes showed unwonted seriousness.
"Deviltry, Watson!" he remarked, and sat long with a clouded brow.
Late last night Mrs. Hudson, our landlady, brought up a message that
a gentleman wished to see Holmes, and that the matter was of the
utmost importance. Close at the heels of his messenger came Cecil
Barker, our friend of the moated Manor House. His face was drawn and
haggard.
"I've had bad news--terrible news, Mr. Holmes," said he.
"I feared as much," said Holmes.
"You have not had a cable, have you?"
"I have had a note from someone who has."
"It's poor Douglas. They tell me his name is Edwards; but he will
always be Jack Douglas of Benito Canyon to me. I told you that they
started together for South Africa in the Palmyra three weeks ago."
"Exactly."
"The ship reached Cape Town last night. I received this cable from
Mrs. Douglas this morning:--
"Jack has been lost overboard in gale off St. Helena. No one knows
how accident occurred.
"Ivy Douglas."
"Ha! It came like that, did it?" said Holmes, thoughtfully. "Well,
I've no doubt it was well stage-managed."
"You mean that you think there was no accident?"
"None in the world."
"He was murdered?"
"Surely!"
"So I think also. These infernal Scowrers, this cursed vindictive
nest of criminals--"
"No, no, my good sir," said Holmes. "There is a master hand here. It
is no case of sawed-off shot-guns and clumsy six-shooters. You can
tell an old master by the sweep of his brush. I can tell a Moriarty
when I see one. This crime is from London, not from America."
"But for what motive?"
"Because it is done by a man who cannot afford to fail--one whose
whole unique position depends upon the fact that all he does must
succeed. A great brain and a huge organization have been turned to
the extinction of one man. It is crushing the nut with the hammer--an
absurd extravagance of energy--but the nut is very effectually
crushed all the same."
"How came this man to have anything to do with it?"
"I can only say that the first word that ever came to us of the
business was from one of his lieutenants. These Americans were well
advised. Having an English job to do, they took into partnership, as
any foreign criminal could do, this great consultant in crime. From
that moment their man was doomed. At first he would content himself
by using his machinery in order to find their victim. Then he would
indicate how the matter might be treated. Finally, when he read in
the reports of the failure of this agent, he would step in himself
with a master touch. You heard me warn this man at Birlstone Manor
House that the coming danger was greater than the past. Was I right?"
Barker beat his head with his clenched fist in his impotent anger.
"Do you tell me that we have to sit down under this? Do you say that
no one can ever get level with this king-devil?"
"No, I don't say that," said Holmes, and his eyes seemed to be
looking far into the future. "I don't say that he can't be beat. But
you must give me time--you must give me time!"
We all sat in silence for some minutes, while those fateful eyes
still strained to pierce the veil.
HIS LAST BOW
PREFACE
The friends of Mr. Sherlock Holmes will be glad to learn that he is
still alive and well, though somewhat crippled by occasional attacks
of rheumatism. He has, for many years, lived in a a small farm upon
the downs five miles from Eastbourne, where his time is divided
between philosophy and agriculture. During this period of rest he has
refused the most princely offers to take up various cases, having
determined that his retirement was a permanent one. The approach of
the German war caused him, however, to lay his remarkable combination
of intellectual and practical activity at the disposal of the
government, with historical results which are recounted in His Last
Bow. Several previous experiences which have lain long in my
portfolio have been added to His Last Bow so as to complete the
volume.
John H. Watson, M. D.
THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE
Table of contents
The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles
The Tiger of San Pedro
CHAPTER I
The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles
I find it recorded in my notebook that it was a bleak and windy day
towards the end of March in the year 1892. Holmes had received a
telegram while we sat at our lunch, and he had scribbled a reply. He
made no remark, but the matter remained in his thoughts, for he stood
in front of the fire afterwards with a thoughtful face, smoking his
pipe, and casting an occasional glance at the message. Suddenly he
turned upon me with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
"I suppose, Watson, we must look upon you as a man of letters," said
he. "How do you define the word 'grotesque'?"
"Strange--remarkable," I suggested.
He shook his head at my definition.
"There is surely something more than that," said he; "some underlying
suggestion of the tragic and the terrible. If you cast your mind
back to some of those narratives with which you have afflicted a
long-suffering public, you will recognize how often the grotesque has
deepened into the criminal. Think of that little affair of the
red-headed men. That was grotesque enough in the outset, and yet it
ended in a desperate attempt at robbery. Or, again, there was that
most grotesque affair of the five orange pips, which let straight to
a murderous conspiracy. The word puts me on the alert."
"Have you it there?" I asked.
He read the telegram aloud.
"Have just had most incredible and grotesque experience. May I
consult you?
"Scott Eccles,
"Post Office, Charing Cross."
"Man or woman?" I asked.
"Oh, man, of course. No woman would ever send a reply-paid telegram.
She would have come."
"Will you see him?"
"My dear Watson, you know how bored I have been since we locked up
