hard, rough surface. Then it flashed through my mind that the pain of
my death would depend very much upon the position in which I met it.
If I lay on my face the weight would come upon my spine, and I
shuddered to think of that dreadful snap. Easier the other way,
perhaps; and yet, had I the nerve to lie and look up at that deadly
black shadow wavering down upon me? Already I was unable to stand
erect, when my eye caught something which brought a gush of hope back
to my heart.
"I have said that though the floor and ceiling were of iron, the
walls were of wood. As I gave a last hurried glance around, I saw a
thin line of yellow light between two of the boards, which broadened
and broadened as a small panel was pushed backward. For an instant I
could hardly believe that here was indeed a door which led away from
death. The next instant I threw myself through, and lay half-fainting
upon the other side. The panel had closed again behind me, but the
crash of the lamp, and a few moments afterwards the clang of the two
slabs of metal, told me how narrow had been my escape.
"I was recalled to myself by a frantic plucking at my wrist, and I
found myself lying upon the stone floor of a narrow corridor, while a
woman bent over me and tugged at me with her left hand, while she
held a candle in her right. It was the same good friend whose warning
I had so foolishly rejected.
"'Come! come!' she cried breathlessly. 'They will be here in a
moment. They will see that you are not there. Oh, do not waste the
so-precious time, but come!'
"This time, at least, I did not scorn her advice. I staggered to my
feet and ran with her along the corridor and down a winding stair.
The latter led to another broad passage, and just as we reached it we
heard the sound of running feet and the shouting of two voices, one
answering the other from the floor on which we were and from the one
beneath. My guide stopped and looked about her like one who is at
her wit's end. Then she threw open a door which led into a bedroom,
through the window of which the moon was shining brightly.
"'It is your only chance,' said she. 'It is high, but it may be that
you can jump it.'
"As she spoke a light sprang into view at the further end of the
passage, and I saw the lean figure of Colonel Lysander Stark rushing
forward with a lantern in one hand and a weapon like a butcher's
cleaver in the other. I rushed across the bedroom, flung open the
window, and looked out. How quiet and sweet and wholesome the garden
looked in the moonlight, and it could not be more than thirty feet
down. I clambered out upon the sill, but I hesitated to jump until I
should have heard what passed between my saviour and the ruffian who
pursued me. If she were ill-used, then at any risks I was determined
to go back to her assistance. The thought had hardly flashed through
my mind before he was at the door, pushing his way past her; but she
threw her arms round him and tried to hold him back.
"'Fritz! Fritz!' she cried in English, 'remember your promise after
the last time. You said it should not be again. He will be silent!
Oh, he will be silent!'
"'You are mad, Elise!' he shouted, struggling to break away from her.
'You will be the ruin of us. He has seen too much. Let me pass, I
say!' He dashed her to one side, and, rushing to the window, cut at
me with his heavy weapon. I had let myself go, and was hanging by the
hands to the sill, when his blow fell. I was conscious of a dull
pain, my grip loosened, and I fell into the garden below.
"I was shaken but not hurt by the fall; so I picked myself up and
rushed off among the bushes as hard as I could run, for I understood
that I was far from being out of danger yet. Suddenly, however, as I
ran, a deadly dizziness and sickness came over me. I glanced down at
my hand, which was throbbing painfully, and then, for the first time,
saw that my thumb had been cut off and that the blood was pouring
from my wound. I endeavoured to tie my handkerchief round it, but
there came a sudden buzzing in my ears, and next moment I fell in a
dead faint among the rose-bushes.
"How long I remained unconscious I cannot tell. It must have been a
very long time, for the moon had sunk, and a bright morning was
breaking when I came to myself. My clothes were all sodden with dew,
and my coat-sleeve was drenched with blood from my wounded thumb. The
smarting of it recalled in an instant all the particulars of my
night's adventure, and I sprang to my feet with the feeling that I
might hardly yet be safe from my pursuers. But to my astonishment,
when I came to look round me, neither house nor garden were to be
seen. I had been lying in an angle of the hedge close by the
highroad, and just a little lower down was a long building, which
proved, upon my approaching it, to be the very station at which I had
arrived upon the previous night. Were it not for the ugly wound upon
my hand, all that had passed during those dreadful hours might have
been an evil dream.
"Half dazed, I went into the station and asked about the morning
train. There would be one to Reading in less than an hour. The same
porter was on duty, I found, as had been there when I arrived. I
inquired of him whether he had ever heard of Colonel Lysander Stark.
The name was strange to him. Had he observed a carriage the night
before waiting for me? No, he had not. Was there a police-station
anywhere near? There was one about three miles off.
"It was too far for me to go, weak and ill as I was. I determined to
wait until I got back to town before telling my story to the police.
It was a little past six when I arrived, so I went first to have my
wound dressed, and then the doctor was kind enough to bring me along
here. I put the case into your hands and shall do exactly what you
advise."
We both sat in silence for some little time after listening to this
extraordinary narrative. Then Sherlock Holmes pulled down from the
shelf one of the ponderous commonplace books in which he placed his
cuttings.
"Here is an advertisement which will interest you," said he. "It
appeared in all the papers about a year ago. Listen to this:
"'Lost, on the 9th inst., Mr. Jeremiah Hayling, aged twenty-six, a
hydraulic engineer. Left his lodgings at ten o'clock at night, and
has not been heard of since. Was dressed in--'
etc., etc. Ha! That represents the last time that the colonel needed
to have his machine overhauled, I fancy."
"Good heavens!" cried my patient. "Then that explains what the girl
said."
"Undoubtedly. It is quite clear that the colonel was a cool and
desperate man, who was absolutely determined that nothing should
stand in the way of his little game, like those out-and-out pirates
who will leave no survivor from a captured ship. Well, every moment
now is precious, so if you feel equal to it we shall go down to
Scotland Yard at once as a preliminary to starting for Eyford."
Some three hours or so afterwards we were all in the train together,
bound from Reading to the little Berkshire village. There were
Sherlock Holmes, the hydraulic engineer, Inspector Bradstreet, of
Scotland Yard, a plain-clothes man, and myself. Bradstreet had spread
an ordnance map of the county out upon the seat and was busy with his
compasses drawing a circle with Eyford for its centre.
"There you are," said he. "That circle is drawn at a radius of ten
miles from the village. The place we want must be somewhere near that
line. You said ten miles, I think, sir."
"It was an hour's good drive."
"And you think that they brought you back all that way when you were
unconscious?"
"They must have done so. I have a confused memory, too, of having
been lifted and conveyed somewhere."
"What I cannot understand," said I, "is why they should have spared
you when they found you lying fainting in the garden. Perhaps the
villain was softened by the woman's entreaties."
"I hardly think that likely. I never saw a more inexorable face in my
life."
"Oh, we shall soon clear up all that," said Bradstreet. "Well, I have
drawn my circle, and I only wish I knew at what point upon it the
folk that we are in search of are to be found."
"I think I could lay my finger on it," said Holmes quietly.
"Really, now!" cried the inspector, "you have formed your opinion!
Come, now, we shall see who agrees with you. I say it is south, for
the country is more deserted there."
"And I say east," said my patient.
"I am for west," remarked the plain-clothes man. "There are several
quiet little villages up there."
"And I am for north," said I, "because there are no hills there, and
our friend says that he did not notice the carriage go up any."
"Come," cried the inspector, laughing; "it's a very pretty diversity
of opinion. We have boxed the compass among us. Who do you give your
casting vote to?"
"You are all wrong."
"But we can't all be."
"Oh, yes, you can. This is my point." He placed his finger in the
centre of the circle. "This is where we shall find them."
"But the twelve-mile drive?" gasped Hatherley.
"Six out and six back. Nothing simpler. You say yourself that the
horse was fresh and glossy when you got in. How could it be that if
it had gone twelve miles over heavy roads?"
"Indeed, it is a likely ruse enough," observed Bradstreet
thoughtfully. "Of course there can be no doubt as to the nature of
this gang."
"None at all," said Holmes. "They are coiners on a large scale, and
have used the machine to form the amalgam which has taken the place
of silver."
"We have known for some time that a clever gang was at work," said
the inspector. "They have been turning out half-crowns by the
thousand. We even traced them as far as Reading, but could get no
farther, for they had covered their traces in a way that showed that
they were very old hands. But now, thanks to this lucky chance, I
think that we have got them right enough."
But the inspector was mistaken, for those criminals were not destined
to fall into the hands of justice. As we rolled into Eyford Station
we saw a gigantic column of smoke which streamed up from behind a
small clump of trees in the neighbourhood and hung like an immense
ostrich feather over the landscape.
"A house on fire?" asked Bradstreet as the train steamed off again on
its way.
"Yes, sir!" said the station-master.
"When did it break out?"
"I hear that it was during the night, sir, but it has got worse, and
the whole place is in a blaze."
"Whose house is it?"
"Dr. Becher's."
"Tell me," broke in the engineer, "is Dr. Becher a German, very thin,
with a long, sharp nose?"
The station-master laughed heartily. "No, sir, Dr. Becher is an
Englishman, and there isn't a man in the parish who has a
better-lined waistcoat. But he has a gentleman staying with him, a
patient, as I understand, who is a foreigner, and he looks as if a
little good Berkshire beef would do him no harm."
The station-master had not finished his speech before we were all
hastening in the direction of the fire. The road topped a low hill,
and there was a great widespread whitewashed building in front of us,
spouting fire at every chink and window, while in the garden in front
three fire-engines were vainly striving to keep the flames under.
"That's it!" cried Hatherley, in intense excitement. "There is the
gravel-drive, and there are the rose-bushes where I lay. That second
window is the one that I jumped from."
"Well, at least," said Holmes, "you have had your revenge upon them.
There can be no question that it was your oil-lamp which, when it was
crushed in the press, set fire to the wooden walls, though no doubt
they were too excited in the chase after you to observe it at the
time. Now keep your eyes open in this crowd for your friends of last
night, though I very much fear that they are a good hundred miles off
by now."
And Holmes' fears came to be realised, for from that day to this no
word has ever been heard either of the beautiful woman, the sinister
German, or the morose Englishman. Early that morning a peasant had
met a cart containing several people and some very bulky boxes
driving rapidly in the direction of Reading, but there all traces of
the fugitives disappeared, and even Holmes' ingenuity failed ever to
discover the least clue as to their whereabouts.
The firemen had been much perturbed at the strange arrangements which
they had found within, and still more so by discovering a newly
