may all congratulate each other. Pity we didn't take the other alive;
but there was no choice. I say, Holmes, you must confess that you cut
it rather fine. It was all we could do to overhaul her."
"All is well that ends well," said Holmes. "But I certainly did not
know that the Aurora was such a clipper."
"Smith says she is one of the fastest launches on the river, and that
if he had had another man to help him with the engines we should
never have caught her. He swears he knew nothing of this Norwood
business."
"Neither he did," cried our prisoner,--"not a word. I chose his
launch because I heard that she was a flier. We told him nothing, but
we paid him well, and he was to get something handsome if we reached
our vessel, the Esmeralda, at Gravesend, outward bound for the
Brazils."
"Well, if he has done no wrong we shall see that no wrong comes to
him. If we are pretty quick in catching our men, we are not so quick
in condemning them." It was amusing to notice how the consequential
Jones was already beginning to give himself airs on the strength of
the capture. From the slight smile which played over Sherlock
Holmes's face, I could see that the speech had not been lost upon
him.
"We will be at Vauxhall Bridge presently," said Jones, "and shall
land you, Dr. Watson, with the treasure-box. I need hardly tell you
that I am taking a very grave responsibility upon myself in doing
this. It is most irregular; but of course an agreement is an
agreement. I must, however, as a matter of duty, send an inspector
with you, since you have so valuable a charge. You will drive, no
doubt?"
"Yes, I shall drive."
"It is a pity there is no key, that we may make an inventory first.
You will have to break it open. Where is the key, my man?"
"At the bottom of the river," said Small, shortly.
"Hum! There was no use your giving this unnecessary trouble. We have
had work enough already through you. However, doctor, I need not warn
you to be careful. Bring the box back with you to the Baker Street
rooms. You will find us there, on our way to the station."
They landed me at Vauxhall, with my heavy iron box, and with a bluff,
genial inspector as my companion. A quarter of an hour's drive
brought us to Mrs. Cecil Forrester's. The servant seemed surprised at
so late a visitor. Mrs. Cecil Forrester was out for the evening, she
explained, and likely to be very late. Miss Morstan, however, was in
the drawing-room: so to the drawing-room I went, box in hand, leaving
the obliging inspector in the cab.
She was seated by the open window, dressed in some sort of white
diaphanous material, with a little touch of scarlet at the neck and
waist. The soft light of a shaded lamp fell upon her as she leaned
back in the basket chair, playing over her sweet, grave face, and
tinting with a dull, metallic sparkle the rich coils of her luxuriant
hair. One white arm and hand drooped over the side of the chair, and
her whole pose and figure spoke of an absorbing melancholy. At the
sound of my foot-fall she sprang to her feet, however, and a bright
flush of surprise and of pleasure colored her pale cheeks.
"I heard a cab drive up," she said. "I thought that Mrs. Forrester
had come back very early, but I never dreamed that it might be you.
What news have you brought me?"
"I have brought something better than news," said I, putting down the
box upon the table and speaking jovially and boisterously, though my
heart was heavy within me. "I have brought you something which is
worth all the news in the world. I have brought you a fortune."
She glanced at iron box. "Is that the treasure, then?" she asked,
coolly enough.
"Yes, this is the great Agra treasure. Half of it is yours and half
is Thaddeus Sholto's. You will have a couple of hundred thousand
each. Think of that! An annuity of ten thousand pounds. There will be
few richer young ladies in England. Is it not glorious?"
I think that I must have been rather overacting my delight, and that
she detected a hollow ring in my congratulations, for I saw her
eyebrows rise a little, and she glanced at me curiously.
"If I have it," said she, "I owe it to you."
"No, no," I answered, "not to me, but to my friend Sherlock Holmes.
With all the will in the world, I could never have followed up a clue
which has taxed even his analytical genius. As it was, we very
nearly lost it at the last moment."
"Pray sit down and tell me all about it, Dr. Watson," said she.
I narrated briefly what had occurred since I had seen her
last,--Holmes's new method of search, the discovery of the Aurora,
the appearance of Athelney Jones, our expedition in the evening, and
the wild chase down the Thames. She listened with parted lips and
shining eyes to my recital of our adventures. When I spoke of the
dart which had so narrowly missed us, she turned so white that I
feared that she was about to faint.
"It is nothing," she said, as I hastened to pour her out some water.
"I am all right again. It was a shock to me to hear that I had placed
my friends in such horrible peril."
"That is all over," I answered. "It was nothing. I will tell you no
more gloomy details. Let us turn to something brighter. There is the
treasure. What could be brighter than that? I got leave to bring it
with me, thinking that it would interest you to be the first to see
it."
"It would be of the greatest interest to me," she said. There was no
eagerness in her voice, however. It had struck her, doubtless, that
it might seem ungracious upon her part to be indifferent to a prize
which had cost so much to win.
"What a pretty box!" she said, stooping over it. "This is Indian
work, I suppose?"
"Yes; it is Benares metal-work."
"And so heavy!" she exclaimed, trying to raise it. "The box alone
must be of some value. Where is the key?"
"Small threw it into the Thames," I answered. "I must borrow Mrs.
Forrester's poker." There was in the front a thick and broad hasp,
wrought in the image of a sitting Buddha. Under this I thrust the end
of the poker and twisted it outward as a lever. The hasp sprang open
with a loud snap. With trembling fingers I flung back the lid. We
both stood gazing in astonishment. The box was empty!
No wonder that it was heavy. The iron-work was two-thirds of an inch
thick all round. It was massive, well made, and solid, like a chest
constructed to carry things of great price, but not one shred or
crumb of metal or jewelry lay within it. It was absolutely and
completely empty.
"The treasure is lost," said Miss Morstan, calmly.
As I listened to the words and realized what they meant, a great
shadow seemed to pass from my soul. I did not know how this Agra
treasure had weighed me down, until now that it was finally removed.
It was selfish, no doubt, disloyal, wrong, but I could realize
nothing save that the golden barrier was gone from between us. "Thank
God!" I ejaculated from my very heart.
She looked at me with a quick, questioning smile. "Why do you say
that?" she asked.
"Because you are within my reach again," I said, taking her hand. She
did not withdraw it. "Because I love you, Mary, as truly as ever a
man loved a woman. Because this treasure, these riches, sealed my
lips. Now that they are gone I can tell you how I love you. That is
why I said, 'Thank God.'"
"Then I say, 'Thank God,' too," she whispered, as I drew her to my
side. Whoever had lost a treasure, I knew that night that I had
gained one.
CHAPTER XII
The Strange Story of Jonathan Small
A very patient man was that inspector in the cab, for it was a weary
time before I rejoined him. His face clouded over when I showed him
the empty box.
"There goes the reward!" said he, gloomily. "Where there is no money
there is no pay. This night's work would have been worth a tenner
each to Sam Brown and me if the treasure had been there."
"Mr. Thaddeus Sholto is a rich man," I said. "He will see that you
are rewarded, treasure or no."
The inspector shook his head despondently, however. "It's a bad job,"
he repeated; "and so Mr. Athelney Jones will think."
His forecast proved to be correct, for the detective looked blank
enough when I got to Baker Street and showed him the empty box. They
had only just arrived, Holmes, the prisoner, and he, for they had
changed their plans so far as to report themselves at a station upon
the way. My companion lounged in his arm-chair with his usual
listless expression, while Small sat stolidly opposite to him with
his wooden leg cocked over his sound one. As I exhibited the empty
box he leaned back in his chair and laughed aloud.
"This is your doing, Small," said Athelney Jones, angrily.
"Yes, I have put it away where you shall never lay hand upon it," he
cried, exultantly. "It is my treasure; and if I can't have the loot
I'll take darned good care that no one else does. I tell you that no
living man has any right to it, unless it is three men who are in the
Andaman convict-barracks and myself. I know now that I cannot have
the use of it, and I know that they cannot. I have acted all through
for them as much as for myself. It's been the sign of four with us
always. Well I know that they would have had me do just what I have
done, and throw the treasure into the Thames rather than let it go to
kith or kin of Sholto or of Morstan. It was not to make them rich
that we did for Achmet. You'll find the treasure where the key is,
and where little Tonga is. When I saw that your launch must catch us,
I put the loot away in a safe place. There are no rupees for you this
journey."
"You are deceiving us, Small," said Athelney Jones, sternly. "If you
had wished to throw the treasure into the Thames it would have been
easier for you to have thrown box and all."
"Easier for me to throw, and easier for you to recover," he answered,
with a shrewd, sidelong look. "The man that was clever enough to hunt
me down is clever enough to pick an iron box from the bottom of a
river. Now that they are scattered over five miles or so, it may be a
harder job. It went to my heart to do it, though. I was half mad when
you came up with us. However, there's no good grieving over it. I've
had ups in my life, and I've had downs, but I've learned not to cry
over spilled milk."
"This is a very serious matter, Small," said the detective. "If you
had helped justice, instead of thwarting it in this way, you would
have had a better chance at your trial."
"Justice!" snarled the ex-convict. "A pretty justice! Whose loot is
this, if it is not ours? Where is the justice that I should give it
up to those who have never earned it? Look how I have earned it!
Twenty long years in that fever-ridden swamp, all day at work under
the mangrove-tree, all night chained up in the filthy convict-huts,
bitten by mosquitoes, racked with ague, bullied by every cursed
black-faced policeman who loved to take it out of a white man. That
was how I earned the Agra treasure; and you talk to me of justice
because I cannot bear to feel that I have paid this price only that
another may enjoy it! I would rather swing a score of times, or have
one of Tonga's darts in my hide, than live in a convict's cell and
feel that another man is at his ease in a palace with the money that
should be mine." Small had dropped his mask of stoicism, and all this
came out in a wild whirl of words, while his eyes blazed, and the
handcuffs clanked together with the impassioned movement of his
hands. I could understand, as I saw the fury and the passion of the
man, that it was no groundless or unnatural terror which had
possessed Major Sholto when he first learned that the injured convict
was upon his track.
"You forget that we know nothing of all this," said Holmes quietly.
"We have not heard your story, and we cannot tell how far justice may
originally have been on your side."
"Well, sir, you have been very fair-spoken to me, though I can see
that I have you to thank that I have these bracelets upon my wrists.
Still, I bear no grudge for that. It is all fair and above-board. If
you want to hear my story I have no wish to hold it back. What I say
to you is God's truth, every word of it. Thank you; you can put the
glass beside me here, and I'll put my lips to it if I am dry.
"I am a Worcestershire man myself,--born near Pershore. I dare say
you would find a heap of Smalls living there now if you were to look.
I have often thought of taking a look round there, but the truth is
