Holmes, but it seems to me that all the detectives of fact and of
fancy would be children in your hands. That's your line of life, sir,
and you may take the word of a man who has seen something of the
world.'
"And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability
with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the
very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be
made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby. At the
moment, however, I was too much concerned at the sudden illness of my
host to think of anything else.
"'I hope that I have said nothing to pain you?' said I.
"'Well, you certainly touched upon rather a tender point. Might I ask
how you know, and how much you know?' He spoke now in a half-jesting
fashion, but a look of terror still lurked at the back of his eyes.
"'It is simplicity itself,' said I. 'When you bared your arm to draw
that fish into the boat I saw that J. A. had been tattooed in the
bend of the elbow. The letters were still legible, but it was
perfectly clear from their blurred appearance, and from the staining
of the skin round them, that efforts had been made to obliterate
them. It was obvious, then, that those initials had once been very
familiar to you, and that you had afterwards wished to forget them.'
"'What an eye you have!' he cried, with a sigh of relief. 'It is just
as you say. But we won't talk of it. Of all ghosts the ghosts of our
old lovers are the worst. Come into the billiard-room and have a
quiet cigar.'
"From that day, amid all his cordiality, there was always a touch of
suspicion in Mr. Trevor's manner towards me. Even his son remarked
it. 'You've given the governor such a turn,' said he, 'that he'll
never be sure again of what you know and what you don't know.' He did
not mean to show it, I am sure, but it was so strongly in his mind
that it peeped out at every action. At last I became so convinced
that I was causing him uneasiness that I drew my visit to a close. On
the very day, however, before I left, an incident occurred which
proved in the sequel to be of importance.
"We were sitting out upon the lawn on garden chairs, the three of us,
basking in the sun and admiring the view across the Broads, when a
maid came out to say that there was a man at the door who wanted to
see Mr. Trevor.
"'What is his name?' asked my host.
"'He would not give any.'
"'What does he want, then?'
"'He says that you know him, and that he only wants a moment's
conversation.'
"'Show him round here.' An instant afterwards there appeared a little
wizened fellow with a cringing manner and a shambling style of
walking. He wore an open jacket, with a splotch of tar on the sleeve,
a red-and-black check shirt, dungaree trousers, and heavy boots badly
worn. His face was thin and brown and crafty, with a perpetual smile
upon it, which showed an irregular line of yellow teeth, and his
crinkled hands were half closed in a way that is distinctive of
sailors. As he came slouching across the lawn I heard Mr. Trevor make
a sort of hiccoughing noise in his throat, and jumping out of his
chair, he ran into the house. He was back in a moment, and I smelt a
strong reek of brandy as he passed me.
"'Well, my man,' said he. 'What can I do for you?'
"The sailor stood looking at him with puckered eyes, and with the
same loose-lipped smile upon his face.
"'You don't know me?' he asked.
"'Why, dear me, it is surely Hudson,' said Mr. Trevor in a tone of
surprise.
"'Hudson it is, sir,' said the seaman. 'Why, it's thirty year and
more since I saw you last. Here you are in your house, and me still
picking my salt meat out of the harness cask.'
"'Tut, you will find that I have not forgotten old times,' cried Mr.
Trevor, and, walking towards the sailor, he said something in a low
voice. 'Go into the kitchen,' he continued out loud, 'and you will
get food and drink. I have no doubt that I shall find you a
situation.'
"'Thank you, sir,' said the seaman, touching his fore-lock. 'I'm just
off a two-yearer in an eight-knot tramp, short-handed at that, and I
wants a rest. I thought I'd get it either with Mr. Beddoes or with
you.'
"'Ah!' cried Trevor. 'You know where Mr. Beddoes is?'
"'Bless you, sir, I know where all my old friends are,' said the
fellow with a sinister smile, and he slouched off after the maid to
the kitchen. Mr. Trevor mumbled something to us about having been
shipmate with the man when he was going back to the diggings, and
then, leaving us on the lawn, he went indoors. An hour later, when we
entered the house, we found him stretched dead drunk upon the
dining-room sofa. The whole incident left a most ugly impression upon
my mind, and I was not sorry next day to leave Donnithorpe behind me,
for I felt that my presence must be a source of embarrassment to my
friend.
"All this occurred during the first month of the long vacation. I
went up to my London rooms, where I spent seven weeks working out a
few experiments in organic chemistry. One day, however, when the
autumn was far advanced and the vacation drawing to a close, I
received a telegram from my friend imploring me to return to
Donnithorpe, and saying that he was in great need of my advice and
assistance. Of course I dropped everything and set out for the North
once more.
"He met me with the dog-cart at the station, and I saw at a glance
that the last two months had been very trying ones for him. He had
grown thin and careworn, and had lost the loud, cheery manner for
which he had been remarkable.
"'The governor is dying,' were the first words he said.
"'Impossible!' I cried. 'What is the matter?'
"'Apoplexy. Nervous shock, He's been on the verge all day. I doubt if
we shall find him alive.'
"I was, as you may think, Watson, horrified at this unexpected news.
"'What has caused it?' I asked.
"'Ah, that is the point. Jump in and we can talk it over while we
drive. You remember that fellow who came upon the evening before you
left us?'
"'Perfectly.'
"'Do you know who it was that we let into the house that day?'
"'I have no idea.'
"'It was the devil, Holmes,' he cried.
"I stared at him in astonishment.
"'Yes, it was the devil himself. We have not had a peaceful hour
since--not one. The governor has never held up his head from that
evening, and now the life has been crushed out of him and his heart
broken, all through this accursed Hudson.'
"'What power had he, then?'
"'Ah, that is what I would give so much to know. The kindly,
charitable, good old governor--how could he have fallen into the
clutches of such a ruffian! But I am so glad that you have come,
Holmes. I trust very much to your judgment and discretion, and I know
that you will advise me for the best.'
"We were dashing along the smooth white country road, with the long
stretch of the Broads in front of us glimmering in the red light of
the setting sun. From a grove upon our left I could already see the
high chimneys and the flag-staff which marked the squire's dwelling.
"'My father made the fellow gardener,' said my companion, 'and then,
as that did not satisfy him, he was promoted to be butler. The house
seemed to be at his mercy, and he wandered about and did what he
chose in it. The maids complained of his drunken habits and his vile
language. The dad raised their wages all round to recompense them for
the annoyance. The fellow would take the boat and my father's best
gun and treat himself to little shooting trips. And all this with
such a sneering, leering, insolent face that I would have knocked him
down twenty times over if he had been a man of my own age. I tell
you, Holmes, I have had to keep a tight hold upon myself all this
time; and now I am asking myself whether, if I had let myself go a
little more, I might not have been a wiser man.
"'Well, matters went from bad to worse with us, and this animal
Hudson became more and more intrusive, until at last, on making some
insolent reply to my father in my presence one day, I took him by the
shoulders and turned him out of the room. He slunk away with a livid
face and two venomous eyes which uttered more threats than his tongue
could do. I don't know what passed between the poor dad and him after
that, but the dad came to me next day and asked me whether I would
mind apologizing to Hudson. I refused, as you can imagine, and asked
my father how he could allow such a wretch to take such liberties
with himself and his household.
"'"Ah, my boy," said he, "it is all very well to talk, but you don't
know how I am placed. But you shall know, Victor. I'll see that you
shall know, come what may. You wouldn't believe harm of your poor old
father, would you, lad?" He was very much moved, and shut himself up
in the study all day, where I could see through the window that he
was writing busily.
"'That evening there came what seemed to me to be a grand release,
for Hudson told us that he was going to leave us. He walked into the
dining-room as we sat after dinner, and announced his intention in
the thick voice of a half-drunken man.
"'"I've had enough of Norfolk," said he. "I'll run down to Mr.
Beddoes in Hampshire. He'll be as glad to see me as you were, I dare
say."
"'"You're not going away in any kind of spirit, Hudson, I hope," said
my father, with a tameness which mad my blood boil.
"'"I've not had my 'pology," said he sulkily, glancing in my
direction.
"'"Victor, you will acknowledge that you have used this worthy fellow
rather roughly," said the dad, turning to me.
"'"On the contrary, I think that we have both shown extraordinary
patience towards him," I answered.
"'"Oh, you do, do you?" he snarls. "Very good, mate. We'll see about
that!"
"'He slouched out of the room, and half an hour afterwards left the
house, leaving my father in a state of pitiable nervousness. Night
after night I heard him pacing his room, and it was just as he was
recovering his confidence that the blow did at last fall.'
"'And how?' I asked eagerly.
"'In a most extraordinary fashion. A letter arrived for my father
yesterday evening, bearing the Fordingbridge post-mark. My father
read it, clapped both his hands to his head, and began running round
the room in little circles like a man who has been driven out of his
senses. When I at last drew him down on to the sofa, his mouth and
eyelids were all puckered on one side, and I saw that he had a
stroke. Dr. Fordham came over at once. We put him to bed; but the
paralysis has spread, he has shown no sign of returning
consciousness, and I think that we shall hardly find him alive.'
"'You horrify me, Trevor!' I cried. 'What then could have been in
this letter to cause so dreadful a result?'
"'Nothing. There lies the inexplicable part of it. The message was
absurd and trivial. Ah, my God, it is as I feared!'
"As he spoke we came round the curve of the avenue, and saw in the
fading light that every blind in the house had been drawn down. As we
dashed up to the door, my friend's face convulsed with grief, a
gentleman in black emerged from it.
"'When did it happen, doctor?' asked Trevor.
"'Almost immediately after you left.'
"'Did he recover consciousness?'
"'For an instant before the end.'
"'Any message for me?'
"'Only that the papers were in the back drawer of the Japanese
cabinet.'
"My friend ascended with the doctor to the chamber of death, while I
remained in the study, turning the whole matter over and over in my
head, and feeling as sombre as ever I had done in my life. What was
the past of this Trevor, pugilist, traveler, and gold-digger, and how
had he placed himself in the power of this acid-faced seaman? Why,
too, should he faint at an allusion to the half-effaced initials upon
his arm, and die of fright when he had a letter from Fordingham?
Then I remembered that Fordingham was in Hampshire, and that this Mr.
Beddoes, whom the seaman had gone to visit and presumably to
blackmail, had also been mentioned as living in Hampshire. The
letter, then, might either come from Hudson, the seaman, saying that
