difficulty of the task. This list will be of very material assistance
to me.'
"'It took some time,' said I.
"'And now,' said he, 'I want you to make a list of the furniture
shops, for they all sell crockery.'
"'Very good.'
"'And you can come up to-morrow evening, at seven, and let me know
how you are getting on. Don't overwork yourself. A couple of hours at
Day's Music Hall in the evening would do you no harm after your
labors.' He laughed as he spoke, and I saw with a thrill that his
second tooth upon the left-hand side had been very badly stuffed with
gold."
Sherlock Holmes rubbed his hands with delight, and I stared with
astonishment at our client.
"You may well look surprised, Dr. Watson; but it is this way," said
he: "When I was speaking to the other chap in London, at the time
that he laughed at my not going to Mawson's, I happened to notice
that his tooth was stuffed in this very identical fashion. The glint
of the gold in each case caught my eye, you see. When I put that with
the voice and figure being the same, and only those things altered
which might be changed by a razor or a wig, I could not doubt that it
was the same man. Of course you expect two brothers to be alike, but
not that they should have the same tooth stuffed in the same way. He
bowed me out, and I found myself in the street, hardly knowing
whether I was on my head or my heels. Back I went to my hotel, put my
head in a basin of cold water, and tried to think it out. Why had he
sent me from London to Birmingham? Why had he got there before me?
And why had he written a letter from himself to himself? It was
altogether too much for me, and I could make no sense of it. And then
suddenly it struck me that what was dark to me might be very light to
Mr. Sherlock Holmes. I had just time to get up to town by the night
train to see him this morning, and to bring you both back with me to
Birmingham."
There was a pause after the stock-broker's clerk had concluded his
surprising experience. Then Sherlock Holmes cocked his eye at me,
leaning back on the cushions with a pleased and yet critical face,
like a connoisseur who has just taken his first sip of a comet
vintage.
"Rather fine, Watson, is it not?" said he. "There are points in it
which please me. I think that you will agree with me that an
interview with Mr. Arthur Harry Pinner in the temporary offices of
the Franco-Midland Hardware Company, Limited, would be a rather
interesting experience for both of us."
"But how can we do it?" I asked.
"Oh, easily enough," said Hall Pycroft, cheerily. "You are two
friends of mine who are in want of a billet, and what could be more
natural than that I should bring you both round to the managing
director?"
"Quite so, of course," said Holmes. "I should like to have a look at
the gentleman, and see if I can make anything of his little game.
What qualities have you, my friend, which would make your services so
valuable? Or is it possible that--" He began biting his nails and
staring blankly out of the window, and we hardly drew another word
from him until we were in New Street.
At seven o'clock that evening we were walking, the three of us, down
Corporation Street to the company's offices.
"It is no use our being at all before our time," said our client. "He
only comes there to see me, apparently, for the place is deserted up
to the very hour he names."
"That is suggestive," remarked Holmes.
"By Jove, I told you so!" cried the clerk. "That's he walking ahead
of us there."
He pointed to a smallish, dark, well-dressed man who was bustling
along the other side of the road. As we watched him he looked across
at a boy who was bawling out the latest edition of the evening paper,
and running over among the cabs and busses, he bought one from him.
Then, clutching it in his hand, he vanished through a door-way.
"There he goes!" cried Hall Pycroft. "These are the company's offices
into which he has gone. Come with me, and I'll fix it up as easily as
possible."
Following his lead, we ascended five stories, until we found
ourselves outside a half-opened door, at which our client tapped. A
voice within bade us enter, and we entered a bare, unfurnished room
such as Hall Pycroft had described. At the single table sat the man
whom we had seen in the street, with his evening paper spread out in
front of him, and as he looked up at us it seemed to me that I had
never looked upon a face which bore such marks of grief, and of
something beyond grief--of a horror such as comes to few men in a
lifetime. His brow glistened with perspiration, his cheeks were of
the dull, dead white of a fish's belly, and his eyes were wild and
staring. He looked at his clerk as though he failed to recognize him,
and I could see by the astonishment depicted upon our conductor's
face that this was by no means the usual appearance of his employer.
"You look ill, Mr. Pinner!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, I am not very well," answered the other, making obvious efforts
to pull himself together, and licking his dry lips before he spoke.
"Who are these gentlemen whom you have brought with you?"
"One is Mr. Harris, of Bermondsey, and the other is Mr. Price, of
this town," said our clerk, glibly. "They are friends of mine and
gentlemen of experience, but they have been out of a place for some
little time, and they hoped that perhaps you might find an opening
for them in the company's employment."
"Very possibly! Very possibly!" cried Mr. Pinner with a ghastly
smile. "Yes, I have no doubt that we shall be able to do something
for you. What is your particular line, Mr. Harris?"
"I am an accountant," said Holmes.
"Ah yes, we shall want something of the sort. And you, Mr. Price?"
"A clerk," said I.
"I have every hope that the company may accommodate you. I will let
you know about it as soon as we come to any conclusion. And now I beg
that you will go. For God's sake leave me to myself!"
These last words were shot out of him, as though the constraint which
he was evidently setting upon himself had suddenly and utterly burst
asunder. Holmes and I glanced at each other, and Hall Pycroft took a
step towards the table.
"You forget, Mr. Pinner, that I am here by appointment to receive
some directions from you," said he.
"Certainly, Mr. Pycroft, certainly," the other resumed in a calmer
tone. "You may wait here a moment; and there is no reason why your
friends should not wait with you. I will be entirely at your service
in three minutes, if I might trespass upon your patience so far." He
rose with a very courteous air, and, bowing to us, he passed out
through a door at the farther end of the room, which he closed behind
him.
"What now?" whispered Holmes. "Is he giving us the slip?"
"Impossible," answered Pycroft.
"Why so?"
"That door leads into an inner room."
"There is no exit?"
"None."
"Is it furnished?"
"It was empty yesterday."
"Then what on earth can he be doing? There is something which I don't
understand in his manner. If ever a man was three parts mad with
terror, that man's name is Pinner. What can have put the shivers on
him?"
"He suspects that we are detectives," I suggested.
"That's it," cried Pycroft.
Holmes shook his head. "He did not turn pale. He was pale when we
entered the room," said he. "It is just possible that--"
His words were interrupted by a sharp rat-tat from the direction of
the inner door.
"What the deuce is he knocking at his own door for?" cried the clerk.
Again and much louder cam the rat-tat-tat. We all gazed expectantly
at the closed door. Glancing at Holmes, I saw his face turn rigid,
and he leaned forward in intense excitement. Then suddenly came a low
guggling, gargling sound, and a brisk drumming upon woodwork. Holmes
sprang frantically across the room and pushed at the door. It was
fastened on the inner side. Following his example, we threw ourselves
upon it with all our weight. One hinge snapped, then the other, and
down came the door with a crash. Rushing over it, we found ourselves
in the inner room. It was empty.
But it was only for a moment that we were at fault. At one corner,
the corner nearest the room which we had left, there was a second
door. Holmes sprang to it and pulled it open. A coat and waistcoat
were lying on the floor, and from a hook behind the door, with his
own braces round his neck, was hanging the managing director of the
Franco-Midland Hardware Company. His knees were drawn up, his head
hung at a dreadful angle to his body, and the clatter of his heels
against the door made the noise which had broken in upon our
conversation. In an instant I had caught him round the waist, and
held him up while Holmes and Pycroft untied the elastic bands which
had disappeared between the livid creases of skin. Then we carried
him into the other room, where he lay with a clay-colored face,
puffing his purple lips in and out with every breath--a dreadful
wreck of all that he had been but five minutes before.
"What do you think of him, Watson?" asked Holmes.
I stooped over him and examined him. His pulse was feeble and
intermittent, but his breathing grew longer, and there was a little
shivering of his eyelids, which showed a thin white slit of ball
beneath.
"It has been touch and go with him," said I, "but he'll live now.
Just open that window, and hand me the water carafe." I undid his
collar, poured the cold water over his face, and raised and sank his
arms until he drew a long, natural breath. "It's only a question of
time now," said I, as I turned away from him.
Holmes stood by the table, with his hands deep in his trouser's
pockets and his chin upon his breast.
"I suppose we ought to call the police in now," said he. "And yet I
confess that I'd like to give them a complete case when they come."
"It's a blessed mystery to me," cried Pycroft, scratching his head.
"Whatever they wanted to bring me all the way up here for, and
then--"
"Pooh! All that is clear enough," said Holmes impatiently. "It is
this last sudden move."
"You understand the rest, then?"
"I think that it is fairly obvious. What do you say, Watson?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "I must confess that I am out of my depths,"
said I.
"Oh surely if you consider the events at first they can only point to
one conclusion."
"What do you make of them?"
"Well, the whole thing hinges upon two points. The first is the
making of Pycroft write a declaration by which he entered the service
of this preposterous company. Do you not see how very suggestive that
is?"
"I am afraid I miss the point."
"Well, why did they want him to do it? Not as a business matter, for
these arrangements are usually verbal, and there was no earthly
business reason why this should be an exception. Don't you see, my
young friend, that they were very anxious to obtain a specimen of
your handwriting, and had no other way of doing it?"
"And why?"
"Quite so. Why? When we answer that we have made some progress with
our little problem. Why? There can be only one adequate reason.
Someone wanted to learn to imitate your writing, and had to procure a
specimen of it first. And now if we pass on to the second point we
find that each throws light upon the other. That point is the request
made by Pinner that you should not resign your place, but should
leave the manager of this important business in the full expectation
that a Mr. Hall Pycroft, whom he had never seen, was about to enter
the office upon the Monday morning."
"My God!" cried our client, "what a blind beetle I have been!"
"Now you see the point about the handwriting. Suppose that some one
turned up in your place who wrote a completely different hand from
that in which you had applied for the vacancy, of course the game
would have been up. But in the interval the rogue had learned to
imitate you, and his position was therefore secure, as I presume that
nobody in the office had ever set eyes upon you."
"Not a soul," groaned Hall Pycroft.
"Very good. Of course it was of the utmost importance to prevent you
from thinking better of it, and also to keep you from coming into
contact with any one who might tell you that your double was at work
in Mawson's office. Therefore they gave you a handsome advance on
