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between our houses to talk it over.

"When we went down there I found him talking with his son,

so smoked a cigar and waited behind a tree until he should be

alone. But as I listened to his talk all that was black and bitter in

me seemed to come uppermost. He was urging his son to marry my

daughter with as little regard for what she might think as if she

were a slut from off the streets. It drove me mad to think that I

and all that I held most dear should be in the power of such a

man as this. Could I not snap the bond? I was already a dying

and a desperate man. Though clear of mind and fairly strong of

limb, I knew that my own fate was sealed. But my memory and

my girl! Both could be saved if I could but silence that foul

tongue. I did it, Mr. Holmes. I would do it again. Deeply as I

have sinned, I have led a life of martyrdom to atone for it. But

that my girl should be entangled in the same meshes which held

me was more than I could suffer. I struck him down with no

more compunction than if he had been some foul and venomous

beast. His cry brought back his son; but I had gained the cover of

the wood, though I was forced to go back to fetch the cloak

which I had dropped in my flight. That is the true story, gentle-

men, of all that occurred."

"Well, it is not for me to judge you," said Holmes as the old

man signed the statement which had been drawn out. "I pray

that we may never be exposed to such a temptation."

"I pray not, sir. And what do you intend to do?"

"In view of your health, nothing. You are yourself aware that

you will soon have to answer for your deed at a higher court than

the Assizes. I will keep your confession, and if McCarthy is

condemned I shall be forced to use it. If not, it shall never be

seen by mortal eye; and your secret, whether you be alive or

dead, shall be safe with us."

"Farewell, then," said the old man solemnly. "Your own

deathbeds, when they come, will be the easier for the thought of

the peace which you have given to mine." Tottering and shaking

in all his giant frame, he stumbled slowly from the room.

"God help us!" said Holmes after a long silence. "Why does

fate play such tricks with poor, helpless worms? I never hear of

such a case as this that I do not think of Baxter's words, and say,

'There, but for the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes.' "

James McCarthy was acquitted at the Assizes on the strength

of a number of objections which had been drawn out by Holmes

and submitted to the defending counsel. Old Turner lived for

seven months after our interview, but he is now dead; and there

is every prospect that the son and daughter may come to live

happily together in ignorance of the black cloud which rests upon

their past.

The Five Orange Pips

When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock

Holmes cases between the years '82 and '90, I am faced by so

many which present strange and interesting features that it is no

easy matter to know which to choose and which to leave. Some,

however, have already gained publicity through the papers, and

others have not offered a field for those peculiar qualities which

my friend possessed in so high a degree, and which it is the

object of these papers to illustrate. Some, too, have baffled his

analytical skill, and would be, as narratives, beginnings without

an ending, while others have been but partially cleared up, and

have their explanations founded rather upon conjecture and sur-

mise than on that absolute logical proof which was so dear to

him. There is, however, one of these last which was so remark-

able in its details and so startling in its results that I am tempted

to give some account of it in spite of the fact that there are points

in connection with it which never have been, and probably never

will be, entirely cleared up.

The year '87 furnished us with a long series of cases of

greater or less interest, of which I retain the records. Among my

headings under this one twelve months I find an account of the

adventure of the Paradol Chamber, of the Amateur Mendicant

Society, who held a luxurious club in the lower vault of a

furniture warehouse, of the facts connected with the loss of the

British bark Sophy Anderson, of the singular adventures of the

Grice Patersons in the island of Uffa, and finally of the Camberwell

poisoning case. In the latter, as may be remembered, Sherlock

Holmes was able, by winding up the dead man's watch, to prove

that it had been wound up two hours before, and that therefore

the deceased had gone to bed within that time -- a deduction

which was of the greatest importance in clearing up the case. All

these I may sketch out at some future date, but none of them

present such singular features as the strange train of circum-

stances which I have now taken up my pen to describe.

It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial

gales had set in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had

screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that

even here in the heart of great, hand-made London we were

forced to raise our minds for the instant from the routine of life

and to recognize the presence of those great elemental forces

which shriek at mankind through the bars of his civilization, like

untamed beasts in a cage. As evening drew in, the storm grew

higher and louder, and the wind cried and sobbed like a child in

the chimney. Sherlock Holmes sat moodily at one side of the

fireplace cross-indexing his records of crime, while I at the other

was deep in one of Clark Russell's fine sea-stories until the howl

of the gale from without seemed to blend with the text, and the

splash of the rain to lengthen out into the long swash of the sea

waves. My wife was on a visit to her mother's, and for a few

days I was a dweller once more in my old quarters at Baker

Street.

"Why," said I, glancing up at my companion, "that was

surely the bell. Who could come to-night? Some friend of yours,

perhaps?"

"Except yourself I have none," he answered. "I do not

encourage visitors."

"A client, then?"

"If so, it is a serious case. Nothing less would bring a man

out on such a day and at such an hour. But I take it that it is

more likely to be some crony of the landlady's."

Sherlock Holmes was wrong in his conjecture, however, for

there came a step in the passage and a tapping at the door. He

stretched out his long arm to turn the lamp away from himself

and towards the vacant chair upon which a newcomer must sit.

"Come in!" said he.

The man who entered was young, some two-and-twenty at the

outside, well-groomed and trimly clad, with something of refine-

ment and delicacy in his bearing. The streaming umbrella which

he held in his hand, and his long shining waterproof told of the

fierce weather through which he had come. He looked about him

anxiously in the glare of the lamp, and I could see that his face

was pale and his eyes heavy, like those of a man who is weighed

down with some great anxiety.

"l owe you an apology," he said, raising his golden pince-nez

to his eyes. "I trust that I am not intruding. I fear that I have

brought some traces of the storm and rain into your snug chamber."

"Give me your coat and umbrella," said Holmes. "They may

rest here on the hook and will be dry presently. You have come

up from the south-west, I see."

"Yes, from Horsham."

"That clay and chalk mixture which I see upon your toe caps

is quite distinctive."

"I have come for advice."

"That is easily got."

"And help."

"That is not always so easy."

"I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes. I heard from Major

Prendergast how you saved him in the Tankerville Club scandal."

"Ah, of course. He was wrongfully accused of cheating at

cards."

"He said that you could solve anything."

"He said too much."

"That you are never beaten."

"I have been beaten four times - three times by men, and

once by a woman."

"But what is that compared with the number of your successes?"

"It is true that I have been generally successful."

"Then you may be so with me."

"I beg that you will draw your chair up to the fire and favour

me with some details as to your case."

"It is no ordinary one."

"None of those which come to me are. I am the last court of

appeal."

"And yet I question, sir, whether, in all your experience, you

have ever listened to a more mysterious and inexplicable chain of

events than those which have happened in my own family."

"You fill me with interest," said Holmes. "Pray give us the

essential facts from the commencement, and I can afterwards

question you as to those details which seem to me to be most

important."

The young man pulled his chair up and pushed his wet feet out

towards the blaze.

"My name," said he, "is John Openshaw, but my own affairs

have, as far as I can understand, little to do with this awful

business. It is a hereditary matter; so in order to give you an idea

of the facts, I must go back to the commencement of the affair.

"You must know that my grandfather had two sons -- my

uncle Elias and my father Joseph. My father had a small factory

at Coventry, which he enlarged at the time of the invention of

bicycling. He was a patentee of the Openshaw unbreakable tire,

and his business met with such success that he was able to sell it

and to retire upon a handsome competence.

"My uncle Elias emigrated to America when he was a young

man and became a planter in Florida, where he was reported to

have done very well. At the time of the war he fought in

Jackson's army, and afterwards under Hood, where he rose to be

a colonel. When Lee laid down his arms my uncle returned to his

plantation, where he remained for three or four years. About

1869 or 1870 he came back to Europe and took a small estate in

Sussex, near Horsham. He had made a very considerable fortune

in the States, and his reason for leaving them was his aversion to

the negroes, and his dislike of the Republican policy in extend-

ing the franchise to them. He was a singular man, fierce and

quick-tempered, very foul-mouthed when he was angry, and of a

most retiring disposition. During all the years that he lived at

Horsham, I doubt if ever he set foot in the town. He had a

garden and two or three fields round his house, and there he

would take his exercise, though very often for weeks on end he

would never leave his room. He drank a great deal of brandy and

smoked very heavily, but he would see no society and did not

want any friends, not even his own brother.

"He didn't mind me; in fact, he took a fancy to me, for at the

time when he saw me first I was a youngster of twelve or so.

This would be in the year 1878, after he had been eight or nine

years in England. He begged my father to let me live with him

and he was very kind to me in his way. When he was sober he

used to be fond of playing backgammon and draughts with me,

and he would make me his representative both with the servants

and with the tradespeople, so that by the time that I was sixteen I

was quite master of the house. I kept all the keys and could go

where I liked and do what I liked, so long as I did not disturb

him in his privacy. There was one singular exception, however,

for he had a single room, a lumber-room up among the attics,

which was invariably locked, and which he would never permit

either me or anyone else to enter. With a boy's curiosity I have

peeped through the keyhole, but I was never able to see more

than such a collection of old trunks and bundles as would be

expected in such a room.

"One day -- it was in March, 1883 -- a letter with a foreign

stamp lay upon the table in front of the colonel's plate. It was

not a common thing for him to receive letters, for his bills were

all paid in ready money, and he had no friends of any sort. 'From

India!' said he as he took it up, 'Pondicherry postmark! What

can this be?' Opening it hurriedly, out there jumped five little

dried orange pips, which pattered down upon his plate. I began

to laugh at this, but the laugh was struck from my lips at the

sight of his face. His lip had fallen, his eyes were protruding, his

skin the colour of putty, and he glared at the envelope which he

still held in his trembling hand, 'K. K. K.!' he shrieked, and

then, 'My God, my God, my sins have overtaken me!'

" 'What is it, uncle?' I cried.

" 'Death,' said he, and rising from the table he retired to his

room, leaving me palpitating with horror. I took up the envelope

and saw scrawled in red ink upon the inner flap, just above the

gum, the letter K three times repeated. There was nothing else

save the five dried pips. What could be the reason of his over-

powering terror? I left the breakfast-table, and as I ascended the

stair I met him coming down with an old rusty key, which must

have belonged to the attic, in one hand, and a small brass box,

like a cashbox, in the other.

" 'They may do what they like, but I'll checkmate them still,'

said he with an oath. 'Tell Mary that I shall want a fire in my

room to-day, and send down to Fordham, the Horsham lawyer.'

"I did as he ordered, and when the lawyer arrived I was asked

to step up to the room. The fire was burning brightly, and in the

grate there was a mass of black, fluffy ashes, as of burned paper,

while the brass box stood open and empty beside it. As I glanced

at the box I noticed, with a start, that upon the lid was printed