your salary, and ran you off to the Midlands, where they gave you
enough work to do to prevent your going to London, where you might
have burst their little game up. That is all plain enough."
"But why should this man pretend to be his own brother?"
"Well, that is pretty clear also. There are evidently only two of
them in it. The other is impersonating you at the office. This one
acted as your engager, and then found that he could not find you an
employer without admitting a third person into his plot. That he was
most unwilling to do. He changed his appearance as far as he could,
and trusted that the likeness, which you could not fail to observe,
would be put down to a family resemblance. But for the happy chance
of the gold stuffing, your suspicions would probably never have been
aroused."
Hall Pycroft shook his clinched hands in the air. "Good Lord!" he
cried, "while I have been fooled in this way, what has this other
Hall Pycroft been doing at Mawson's? What should we do, Mr. Holmes?
Tell me what to do."
"We must wire to Mawson's."
"They shut at twelve on Saturdays."
"Never mind. There may be some door-keeper or attendant--"
"Ah yes, they keep a permanent guard there on account of the value of
the securities that they hold. I remember hearing it talked of in the
City."
"Very good; we shall wire to him, and see if all is well, and if a
clerk of your name is working there. That is clear enough; but what
is not so clear is why at sight of us one of the rogues should
instantly walk out of the room and hang himself."
"The paper!" croaked a voice behind us. The man was sitting up,
blanched and ghastly, with returning reason in his eyes, and hands
which rubbed nervously at the broad red band which still encircled
his throat.
"The paper! Of course!" yelled Holmes, in a paroxysm of excitement.
"Idiot that I was! I thought so must of our visit that the paper
never entered my head for an instant. To be sure, the secret must be
there." He flattened it out upon the table, and a cry of triumph
burst from his lips. "Look at this, Watson," he cried. "It is a
London paper, an early edition of the Evening Standard. Here is what
we want. Look at the headlines: 'Crime in the City. Murder at Mawson
& Williams's. Gigantic attempted Robbery. Capture of the Criminal.'
Here, Watson, we are all equally anxious to hear it, so kindly read
it aloud to us."
It appeared from its position in the paper to have been the one event
of importance in town, and the account of it ran in this way:
"A desperate attempt at robbery, culminating in the death of one man
and the capture of the criminal, occurred this afternoon in the City.
For some time back Mawson & Williams, the famous financial house,
have been the guardians of securities which amount in the aggregate
to a sum of considerably over a million sterling. So conscious was
the manager of the responsibility which devolved upon him in
consequence of the great interests at stake that safes of the very
latest construction have been employed, and an armed watchman has
been left day and night in the building. It appears that last week a
new clerk named Hall Pycroft was engaged by the firm. This person
appears to have been none other that Beddington, the famous forger
and cracksman, who, with his brother, had only recently emerged from
a five years' spell of penal servitude. By some mean, which are not
yet clear, he succeeded in winning, under a false name, this official
position in the office, which he utilized in order to obtain moulding
of various locks, and a thorough knowledge of the position of the
strong room and the safes.
"It is customary at Mawson's for the clerks to leave at midday on
Saturday. Sergeant Tuson, of the City Police, was somewhat surprised,
therefore to see a gentleman with a carpet bag come down the steps at
twenty minutes past one. His suspicions being aroused, the sergeant
followed the man, and with the aid of Constable Pollack succeeded,
after a most desperate resistance, in arresting him. It was at once
clear that a daring and gigantic robbery had been committed. Nearly a
hundred thousand pounds' worth of American railway bonds, with a
large amount of scrip in mines and other companies, was discovered in
the bag. On examining the premises the body of the unfortunate
watchman was found doubled up and thrust into the largest of the
safes, where it would not have been discovered until Monday morning
had it not been for the prompt action of Sergeant Tuson. The man's
skull had been shattered by a blow from a poker delivered from
behind. There could be no doubt that Beddington had obtained entrance
by pretending that he had left something behind him, and having
murdered the watchman, rapidly rifled the large safe, and then made
off with his booty. His brother, who usually works with him, has not
appeared in this job as far as can at present be ascertained,
although the police are making energetic inquiries as to his
whereabouts."
"Well, we may save the police some little trouble in that direction,"
said Holmes, glancing at the haggard figure huddled up by the window.
"Human nature is a strange mixture, Watson. You see that even a
villain and murderer can inspire such affection that his brother
turns to suicide when he learns that his neck is forfeited. However,
we have no choice as to our action. The doctor and I will remain on
guard, Mr. Pycroft, if you will have the kindness to step out for the
police."
THE "GLORIA SCOTT"
"I have some papers here," said my friend Sherlock Holmes, as we sat
one winter's night on either side of the fire, "which I really think,
Watson, that it would be worth your while to glance over. These are
the documents in the extraordinary case of the Gloria Scott, and this
is the message which struck Justice of the Peace Trevor dead with
horror when he read it."
He had picked from a drawer a little tarnished cylinder, and, undoing
the tape, he handed me a short note scrawled upon a half-sheet of
slate gray-paper.
"The supply of game for London is going steadily up," it ran.
"Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, had been now told to receive all
orders for fly-paper and for preservation of your hen-pheasant's
life."
As I glanced up from reading this enigmatical message, I saw Holmes
chuckling at the expression upon my face.
"You look a little bewildered," said he.
"I cannot see how such a message as this could inspire horror. It
seems to me to be rather grotesque than otherwise."
"Very likely. Yet the fact remains that the reader, who was a fine,
robust old man, was knocked clean down by it as if it had been the
butt end of a pistol."
"You arouse my curiosity," said I. "But why did you say just now that
there were very particular reasons why I should study this case?"
"Because it was the first in which I was ever engaged."
I had often endeavored to elicit from my companion what had first
turned his mind in the direction of criminal research, but had never
caught him before in a communicative humor. Now he sat forward in
this arm chair and spread out the documents upon his knees. Then he
lit his pipe and sat for some time smoking and turning them over.
"You never heard me talk of Victor Trevor?" he asked. "He was the
only friend I made during the two years I was at college. I was never
a very sociable fellow, Watson, always rather fond of moping in my
rooms and working out my own little methods of thought, so that I
never mixed much with the men of my year. Bar fencing and boxing I
had few athletic tastes, and then my line of study was quite distinct
from that of the other fellows, so that we had no points of contact
at all. Trevor was the only man I knew, and that only through the
accident of his bull terrier freezing on to my ankle one morning as I
went down to chapel.
"It was a prosaic way of forming a friendship, but it was effective.
I was laid by the heels for ten days, but Trevor used to come in to
inquire after me. At first it was only a minute's chat, but soon his
visits lengthened, and before the end of the term we were close
friends. He was a hearty, full-blooded fellow, full of spirits and
energy, the very opposite to me in most respects, but we had some
subjects in common, and it was a bond of union when I found that he
was as friendless as I. Finally, he invited me down to his father's
place at Donnithorpe, in Norfolk, and I accepted his hospitality for
a month of the long vacation.
"Old Trevor was evidently a man of some wealth and consideration, a
J.P., and a landed proprietor. Donnithorpe is a little hamlet just to
the north of Langmere, in the country of the Broads. The house was
and old-fashioned, wide-spread, oak-beamed brick building, with a
fine lime-lined avenue leading up to it. There was excellent
wild-duck shooting in the fens, remarkably good fishing, a small but
select library, taken over, as I understood, from a former occupant,
and a tolerable cook, so that he would be a fastidious man who could
not put in a pleasant month there.
"Trevor senior was a widower, and my friend his only son.
"There had been a daughter, I heard, but she had died of diphtheria
while on a visit to Birmingham. The father interested me extremely.
He was a man of little culture, but with a considerable amount of
rude strength, both physically and mentally. He knew hardly any
books, but he had traveled far, had seen much of the world. And had
remembered all that he had learned. In person he was a thick-set,
burly man with a shock of grizzled hair, a brown, weather-beaten
face, and blue eyes which were keen to the verge of fierceness. Yet
he had a reputation for kindness and charity on the country-side, and
was noted for the leniency of his sentences from the bench.
"One evening, shortly after my arrival, we were sitting over a glass
of port after dinner, when young Trevor began to talk about those
habits of observation and inference which I had already formed into a
system, although I had not yet appreciated the part which they were
to play in my life. The old man evidently thought that his son was
exaggerating in his description of one or two trivial feats which I
had performed.
"'Come, now, Mr. Holmes,' said he, laughing good-humoredly. 'I'm an
excellent subject, if you can deduce anything from me.'
"'I fear there is not very much,' I answered; 'I might suggest that
you have gone about in fear of some personal attack with the last
twelvemonth.'
"The laugh faded from his lips, and he stared at me in great
surprise.
"'Well, that's true enough,' said he. 'You know, Victor,' turning to
his son, 'when we broke up that poaching gang they swore to knife us,
and Sir Edward Holly has actually been attacked. I've always been on
my guard since then, though I have no idea how you know it.'
"'You have a very handsome stick,' I answered. 'By the inscription I
observed that you had not had it more than a year. But you have taken
some pains to bore the head of it and pour melted lead into the hole
so as to make it a formidable weapon. I argued that you would not
take such precautions unless you had some danger to fear.'
"'Anything else?' he asked, smiling.
"'You have boxed a good deal in your youth.'
"'Right again. How did you know it? Is my nose knocked a little out
of the straight?'
"'No,' said I. 'It is your ears. They have the peculiar flattening
and thickening which marks the boxing man.'
"'Anything else?'
"'You have done a good deal of digging by your callosities.'
"'Made all my money at the gold fields.'
"'You have been in New Zealand.'
"'Right again.'
"'You have visited Japan.'
"'Quite true.'
"'And you have been most intimately associated with some one whose
initials were J. A., and whom you afterwards were eager to entirely
forget.'
"Mr. Trevor stood slowly up, fixed his large blue eyes upon me with a
strange wild stare, and then pitched forward, with his face among the
nutshells which strewed the cloth, in a dead faint.
"You can imagine, Watson, how shocked both his son and I were. His
attack did not last long, however, for when we undid his collar, and
sprinkled the water from one of the finger-glasses over his face, he
gave a gasp or two and sat up.
"'Ah, boys,' said he, forcing a smile, 'I hope I haven't frightened
you. Strong as I look, there is a weak place in my heart, and it does
not take much to knock me over. I don't know how you manage this, Mr.
