him and tried to bar his passage, but he thrust her back, and an
instant afterwards we were all upon the stairs. Grant Munro rushed
into the lighted room at the top, and we entered at his heels.
It was a cosy, well-furnished apartment, with two candles burning
upon the table and two upon the mantelpiece. In the corner, stooping
over a desk, there sat what appeared to be a little girl. Her face
was turned away as we entered, but we could see that she was dressed
in a red frock, and that she had long white gloves on. As she whisked
round to us, I gave a cry of surprise and horror. The face which she
turned towards us was of the strangest livid tint, and the features
were absolutely devoid of any expression. An instant later the
mystery was explained. Holmes, with a laugh, passed his hand behind
the child's ear, a mask peeled off from her countenance, an there was
a little coal black negress, with all her white teeth flashing in
amusement at our amazed faces. I burst out laughing, out of sympathy
with her merriment; but Grant Munro stood staring, with his hand
clutching his throat.
"My God!" he cried. "What can be the meaning of this?"
"I will tell you the meaning of it," cried the lady, sweeping into
the room with a proud, set face. "You have forced me, against my own
judgment, to tell you, and now we must both make the best of it. My
husband died at Atlanta. My child survived."
"Your child?"
She drew a large silver locket from her bosom. "You have never seen
this open."
"I understood that it did not open."
She touched a spring, and the front hinged back. There was a portrait
within of a man strikingly handsome and intelligent-looking, but
bearing unmistakable signs upon his features of his African descent.
"That is John Hebron, of Atlanta," said the lady, "and a nobler man
never walked the earth. I cut myself off from my race in order to wed
him, but never once while he lived did I for an instant regret it. It
was our misfortune that our only child took after his people rather
than mine. It is often so in such matches, and little Lucy is darker
far than ever her father was. But dark or fair, she is my own dear
little girlie, and her mother's pet." The little creature ran across
at the words and nestled up against the lady's dress. "When I left
her in America," she continued, "it was only because her health was
weak, and the change might have done her harm. She was given to the
care of a faithful Scotch woman who had once been our servant. Never
for an instant did I dream of disowning her as my child. But when
chance threw you in my way, Jack, and I learned to love you, I feared
to tell you about my child. God forgive me, I feared that I should
lose you, and I had not the courage to tell you. I had to choose
between you, and in my weakness I turned away from my own little
girl. For three years I have kept her existence a secret from you,
but I heard from the nurse, and I knew that all was well with her. At
last, however, there came an overwhelming desire to see the child
once more. I struggled against it, but in vain. Though I knew the
danger, I determined to have the child over, if it were but for a few
weeks. I sent a hundred pounds to the nurse, and I gave her
instructions about this cottage, so that she might come as a
neighbor, without my appearing to be in any way connected with her. I
pushed my precautions so far as to order her to keep the child in the
house during the daytime, and to cover up her little face and hands
so that even those who might see her at the window should not gossip
about there being a black child in the neighborhood. If I had been
less cautious I might have been more wise, but I was half crazy with
fear that you should learn the truth.
"It was you who told me first that the cottage was occupied. I should
have waited for the morning, but I could not sleep for excitement,
and so at last I slipped out, knowing how difficult it is to awake
you. But you saw me go, and that was the beginning of my troubles.
Next day you had my secret at your mercy, but you nobly refrained
from pursuing your advantage. Three days later, however, the nurse
and child only just escaped from the back door as you rushed in at
the front one. And now to-night you at last know all, and I ask you
what is to become of us, my child and me?" She clasped her hands and
waited for an answer.
It was a long ten minutes before Grant Munro broke the silence, and
when his answer came it was one of which I love to think. He lifted
the little child, kissed her, and then, still carrying her, he held
his other hand out to his wife and turned towards the door.
"We can talk it over more comfortably at home," said he. "I am not a
very good man, Effie, but I think that I am a better one than you
have given me credit for being."
Holmes and I followed them down the lane, and my friend plucked at my
sleeve as we came out.
"I think," said he, "that we shall be of more use in London than in
Norbury."
Not another word did he say of the case until late that night, when
he was turning away, with his lighted candle, for his bedroom.
"Watson," said he, "if it should ever strike you that I am getting a
little over-confident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case
than it deserves, kindly whisper 'Norbury' in my ear, and I shall be
infinitely obliged to you."
THE STOCK-BROKER'S CLERK
Shortly after my marriage I had bought a connection in the Paddington
district. Old Mr. Farquhar, from whom I purchased it, had at one time
an excellent general practice; but his age, and an affliction of the
nature of St. Vitus's dance from which he suffered, had very much
thinned it. The public not unnaturally goes on the principle that he
who would heal others must himself be whole, and looks askance at the
curative powers of the man whose own case is beyond the reach of his
drugs. Thus as my predecessor weakened his practice declined, until
when I purchased it from him it had sunk from twelve hundred to
little more than three hundred a year. I had confidence, however, in
my own youth and energy, and was convinced that in a very few years
the concern would be as flourishing as ever.
For three months after taking over the practice I was kept very
closely at work, and saw little of my friend Sherlock Holmes, for I
was too busy to visit Baker Street, and he seldom went anywhere
himself save upon professional business. I was surprised, therefore,
when, one morning in June, as I sat reading the British Medical
Journal after breakfast, I heard a ring at the bell, followed by the
high, somewhat strident tones of my old companion's voice.
"Ah, my dear Watson," said he, striding into the room, "I am very
delighted to see you! I trust that Mrs. Watson has entirely recovered
from all the little excitements connected with our adventure of the
Sign of Four."
"Thank you, we are both very well," said I, shaking him warmly by the
hand.
"And I hope, also," he continued, sitting down in the rocking-chair,
"that the cares of medical practice have not entirely obliterated the
interest which you used to take in our little deductive problems."
"On the contrary," I answered, "it was only last night that I was
looking over my old notes, and classifying some of our past results."
"I trust that you don't consider your collection closed."
"Not at all. I should wish nothing better than to have some more of
such experiences."
"To-day, for example?"
"Yes, to-day, if you like."
"And as far off as Birmingham?"
"Certainly, if you wish it."
"And the practice?"
"I do my neighbor's when he goes. He is always ready to work off the
debt."
"Ha! Nothing could be better," said Holmes, leaning back in his chair
and looking keenly at me from under his half closed lids. "I perceive
that you have been unwell lately. Summer colds are always a little
trying."
"I was confined to the house by a sever chill for three days last
week. I thought, however, that I had cast off every trace of it."
"So you have. You look remarkably robust."
"How, then, did you know of it?"
"My dear fellow, you know my methods."
"You deduced it, then?"
"Certainly."
"And from what?"
"From your slippers."
I glanced down at the new patent leathers which I was wearing. "How
on earth--" I began, but Holmes answered my question before it was
asked.
"Your slippers are new," he said. "You could not have had them more
than a few weeks. The soles which you are at this moment presenting
to me are slightly scorched. For a moment I thought they might have
got wet and been burned in the drying. But near the instep there is a
small circular wafer of paper with the shopman's hieroglyphics upon
it. Damp would of course have removed this. You had, then, been
sitting with our feet outstretched to the fire, which a man would
hardly do even in so wet a June as this if he were in his full
health."
Like all Holmes's reasoning the thing seemed simplicity itself when
it was once explained. He read the thought upon my features, and his
smile had a tinge of bitterness.
"I am afraid that I rather give myself away when I explain," said he.
"Results without causes are much more impressive. You are ready to
come to Birmingham, then?"
"Certainly. What is the case?"
"You shall hear it all in the train. My client is outside in a
four-wheeler. Can you come at once?"
"In an instant." I scribbled a note to my neighbor, rushed upstairs
to explain the matter to my wife, and joined Holmes upon the
door-step.
"Your neighbor is a doctor," said he, nodding at the brass plate.
"Yes; he bought a practice as I did."
"An old-established one?"
"Just the same as mine. Both have been ever since the houses were
built."
"Ah! Then you got hold of the best of the two."
"I think I did. But how do you know?"
"By the steps, my boy. Yours are worn three inches deeper than his.
But this gentleman in the cab is my client, Mr. Hall Pycroft. Allow
me to introduce you to him. Whip your horse up, cabby, for we have
only just time to catch our train."
The man whom I found myself facing was a well built,
fresh-complexioned young fellow, with a frank, honest face and a
slight, crisp, yellow mustache. He wore a very shiny top hat and a
neat suit of sober black, which made him look what he was--a smart
young City man, of the class who have been labeled cockneys, but who
give us our crack volunteer regiments, and who turn out more fine
athletes and sportsmen than any body of men in these islands. His
round, ruddy face was naturally full of cheeriness, but the corners
of his mouth seemed to me to be pulled down in a half-comical
distress. It was not, however, until we were all in a first-class
carriage and well started upon our journey to Birmingham that I was
able to learn what the trouble was which had driven him to Sherlock
Holmes.
"We have a clear run here of seventy minutes," Holmes remarked. "I
want you, Mr. Hall Pycroft, to tell my friend your very interesting
experience exactly as you have told it to me, or with more detail if
possible. It will be of use to me to hear the succession of events
again. It is a case, Watson, which may prove to have something in it,
or may prove to have nothing, but which, at least, presents those
unusual and outr?features which are as dear to you as they are to
me. Now, Mr. Pycroft, I shall not interrupt you again."
Our young companion looked at me with a twinkle in his eye.
"The worst of the story is," said he, "that I show myself up as such
a confounded fool. Of course it may work out all right, and I don't
see that I could have done otherwise; but if I have lost my crib and
get nothing in exchange I shall feel what a soft Johnnie I have been.
I'm not very good at telling a story, Dr. Watson, but it is like this
with me:
"I used to have a billet at Coxon & Woodhouse's, of Draper's Gardens,
but they were let in early in the spring through the Venezuelan loan,
as no doubt you remember, and came a nasty cropper. I had been with
them five years, and old Coxon gave me a ripping good testimonial
when the smash came, but of course we clerks were all turned adrift,
the twenty-seven of us. I tried here and tried there, but there were
lots of other chaps on the same lay as myself, and it was a perfect
frost for a long time. I had been taking three pounds a week at
Coxon's, and I had saved about seventy of them, but I soon worked my
