第 21 页

Gladstone bag. Come on, my boy, and we shall see whether it

will not fit the lock."

We made our way downstairs as quietly as possible, and out

into the bright morning sunshine. In the road stood our horse and

trap, with the half-clad stable-boy waiting at the head. We both

sprang in, and away we dashed down the London Road. A few

country carts were stirring, bearing in vegetables to the metropo-

lis, but the lines of villas on either side were as silent and lifeless

as some city in a dream.

"It has been in some points a singular case," said Holmes,

flicking the horse on into a gallop. "I confess that I have been as

blind as a mole, but it is better to learn wisdom late than never

to learn it at all."

In town the earliest risers were just beginning to look sleepily

from their windows as we drove through the streets of the Surrey

side. Passing down the Waterloo Bridge Road we crossed over

the river, and dashing up Wellington Street wheeled sharply to

the right and found ourselves in Bow Street. Sherlock Holmes

was well known to the force, and the two constables at the door

saluted him. One of them held the horse's head while the other

led us in.

"Who is on duty?" asked Holmes.

"Inspector Bradstreet, sir."

"Ah, Bradstreet, how are you?" A tall, stout official had come

down the stone-flagged passage, in a peaked cap and frogged

jacket. "I wish to have a quiet word with you, Bradstreet."

"Certainly, Mr. Holmes. Step into my room here."

It was a small, office-like room, with a huge ledger upon the

table, and a telephone projecting from the wall. The inspector

sat down at his desk.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Holmes?"

"I called about that beggarman, Boone -- the one who was

charged with being concerned in the disappearance of Mr. Neville

St. Clair, of Lee."

"Yes. He was brought up and remanded for further inquiries."

"So I heard. You have him here?"

"In the cells."

"Is he quiet?"

"Oh, he gives no trouble. But he is a dirty scoundrel."

"Dirty?"

"Yes, it is all we can do to make him wash his hands, and his

face is as black as a tinker's. Well, when once his case has been

settled, he will have a regular prison bath; and I think, if you

saw him, you would agree with me that he needed it."

"I should like to see him very much."

"Would you? That is easily done. Come this way. You can

leave your bag."

"No, I think that I'll take it."

"Very good. Come this way, if you please." He led us down a

passage, opened a barred door, passed down a winding stair, and

brought us to a whitewashed corridor with a line of doors on

each side.

"The third on the right is his," said the inspector. "Here it

is!" He quietly shot back a panel in the upper part of the door

and glanced through.

"He is asleep," said he. "You can see him very well."

We both put our eyes to the grating. The prisoner lay with his

face towards us, in a very deep sleep, breathing slowly and

heavily. He was a middle-sized man, coarsely clad as became his

calling, with a coloured shirt protruding through the rent in his

tattered coat. He was, as the inspector had said, extremely dirty,

but the grime which covered his face could not conceal its

repulsive ugliness. A broad wheal from an old scar ran right

across it from eye to chin, and by its contraction had turned up

one side of the upper lip, so that three teeth were exposed in a

perpetual snarl. A shock of very bright red hair grew low over

his eyes and forehead.

"He's a beauty, isn't he?" said the inspector.

"He certainly needs a wash," remarked Holmes. "I had an

idea that he might, and I took the liberty of bringing the tools

with me." He opened the Gladstone bag as he spoke, and took

out, to my astonishment, a very large bath-sponge.

"He! he! You are a funny one," chuckled the inspector.

"Now, if you will have the great goodness to open that door

very quietly, we will soon make him cut a much more respect-

able figure."

"Well, I don't know why not," said the inspector. "He

doesn't look a credit to the Bow Street cells, does he?" He

slipped his key into the lock, and we all very quietly entered the

cell. The sleeper half turned, and then settled down once more

into a deep slumber. Holmes stooped to the waterjug, moistened

his sponge, and then rubbed it twice vigorously across and down

the prisoner's face.

"Let me introduce you," he shouted, "to Mr. Neville St.

Clair, of Lee, in the county of Kent."

Never in my life have I seen such a sight. The man's face

peeled off under the sponge like the bark from a tree. Gone was

the coarse brown tint! Gone, too, was the horrid scar which had

seamed it across, and the twisted lip which had given the repul-

sive sneer to the face! A twitch brought away the tangled red

hair, and there, sitting up in his bed, was a pale, sad-faced,

refined-looking man, black-haired and smooth-skinned, rubbing

his eyes and staring about him with sleepy bewilderment. Then

suddenly realizing the exposure, he broke into a scream and

threw himself down with his face to the pillow.

"Great heavens!" cried the inspector, "it is, indeed, the

missing man. I know him from the photograph."

The prisoner turned with the reckless air of a man who aban-

dons himself to his destiny. "Be it so," said he. "And pray

what am I charged with?"

"With making away with Mr. Neville St. Oh, come, you

can't be charged with that unless they make a case of attempted

suicide of it," said the inspector with a grin. "Well, I have been

twenty-seven years in the force, but this really takes the cake."

"If I am Mr. Neville St. Clair, then it is obvious that no crime

has been committed, and that, therefore, I am illegally detained."

"No crime, but a very great error has been committed," said

Holmes. "You would have done better to have trusted you

wife."

"It was not the wife; it was the children," groaned the

prisoner. "God help me, I would not have them ashamed of their

father. My God! What an exposure! What can I do?"

Sherlock Holmes sat down beside him on the couch and patted

him kindly on the shoulder.

"If you leave it to a court of law to clear the matter up," said

he, "of course you can hardly avoid publicity. On the other

hand, if you convince the police authorities that there is no

possible case against you, I do not know that there is any reasoa

that the details should find their way into the papers. Inspector

Bradstreet would, I am sure, make notes upon anything which

you might tell us and submit it to the proper authorities. The case

would then never go into court at all."

"God bless you!" cried the prisoner passionately. "I would

have endured imprisonment, ay, even execution, rather than

have left my miserable secret as a family blot to my children.

"You are the first who have ever heard my story. My father

was a school-master in Chesterfield, where I received an excel-:

lent education. I travelled in my youth, took to the stage, and

finally became a reporter on an evening paper in London. One

day my editor wished to have a series of articles upon begging in

the metropolis, and I volunteered to supply them. There was the

point from which all my adventures started. It was only by trying

begging as an amateur that I could get the facts upon which to

base my articles. When an actor I had, of course, learned all the

secrets of making up, and had been famous in the green-room for

my skill. I took advantage now of my attainments. I painted my

face, and to make myself as pitiable as possible I made a good

scar and fixed one side of my lip in a twist by the aid of a small

slip of flesh-coloured plaster. Then with a red head of hair, and

an appropriate dress, I took my station in the business part of the

city, ostensibly as a match-seller but really as a beggar. For

seven hours I plied my trade, and when I returned home in the

evening I found to my surprise that I had received no less than

26s. 4d.

"I wrote my articles and thought little more of the matter

until, some time later, I backed a bill for a friend and had a writ

served upon me for 25 pounds. I was at my wit's end where to get the

money, but a sudden idea came to me. I begged a fortnight's

grace from the creditor, asked for a holiday from my employers,

and spent the time in begging in the City under my disguise. In

ten days I had the money and had paid the debt.

"Well, you can imagine how hard it was to settle down to

arduous work at 2 pounds a week when I knew that I could earn as

much in a day by smearing my face with a little paint, laying my

cap on the ground, and sitting still. It was a long fight between

my pride and the money, but the dollars won at last, and I threw

up reporting and sat day after day in the corner which I had first

chosen, inspiring pity by my ghastly face and filling my pockets

with coppers. Only one man knew my secret. He was the keeper

of a low den in which I used to lodge in Swandam Lane, where I

could every morning emerge as a squalid beggar and in the

evenings transform myself into a well-dressed man about town.

This fellow, a lascar, was well paid by me for his rooms, so that

I knew that my secret was safe in his possession.

"Well, very soon I found that I was saving considerable sums

of money. I do not mean that any beggar in the streets of London

could earn 700 pounds a year -- which is less than my average takings --

but I had exceptional advantages in my power of making up, and

also in a facility of repartee, which improved by practice and

made me quite a recognized character in the City. All day a

stream of pennies, varied by silver, poured in upon me, and it

was a very bad day in which I failed to take 2 pounds.

"As I grew richer I grew more ambitious, took a house in the

country, and eventually married, without anyone having a suspi-

cion as to my real occupation. My dear wife knew that I had

business in the City. She little knew what.

"Last Monday I had finished for the day and was dressing in

my room above the opium den when I looked out of my window

and saw, to my horror and astonishment, that my wife was

standing in the street, with her eyes fixed full upon me. I gave a

cry of surprise, threw up my arms to cover my face, and, rushing

to my confidant, the lascar, entreated him to prevent anyone

from coming up to me. I heard her voice downstairs, but I knew

that she could not ascend. Swiftly I threw off my clothes, pulled

on those of a beggar, and put on my pigments and wig. Even a

wife's eyes could not pierce so complete a disguise. But then it

occurred to me that there might be a search in the room, and that

the clothes might betray me. I threw open the window, reopen-

ing by my violence a small cut which I had inflicted upon myself

in the bedroom that morning. Then I seized my coat, which was

weighted by the coppers which I had just transferred to it from

the leather bag in which I carried my takings. I hurled it out of

the window, and it disappered into the Thames. The other

clothes would have followed, but at that moment there was a

rush of constables up the stair, and a few minutes after I found,

rather, I confess, to my relief, that instead of being identified as

Mr. Neville St. Clair, I was arrested as his murderer.

"I do not know that there is anything else for me to explain. I

was determined to preserve my disguise as long as possible, and

hence my preference for a dirty face. Knowing that my wife

would be terribly anxious, I slipped off my ring and confided it

to the lascar at a moment when no constable was watching me,

together with a hurried scrawl, telling her that she had no cause

to fear."

"That note only reached her yesterday," said Holmes.

"Good God! What a week she must have spent!"

"The police have watched this lascar," said Inspector Brad-

street, "and I can quite understand that he might find it difficult

to post a letter unobserved. Probably he handed it to some sailor

customer of his, who forgot all about it for some days."

"That was it," said Holmes, nodding approvingly; "I have no

doubt of it. But have you never been prosecuted for begging?"

"Many times; but what was a fine to me?"

"It must stop here, however," said Bradstreet. "If the police

are to hush this thing up, there must be no more of Hugh

Boone."

"I have sworn it by the most solemn oaths which a man can

take."

"In that case I think that it is probable that no further steps

may be taken. But if you are found again, then all must come

out. I am sure, Mr. Holmes, that we are very moch indebted to

you for having cleared the matter up. I wish I knew how you

reach your results."

"I reached this one," said my friend, "by sitting upon five

pillows and consuming an ounce of shag. I think, Watson, that if

we drive to Baker Street we shall just be in time for breakfast."

The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle

I had called upon my friend Sherlock Holrnes upon the

second morning after Christmas, with the intention of wishing

him the compliments of the season. He was lounging upon the

sofa in a purple dressing-gown, a pipe-rack within his reach

upon the right, and a pile of crumpled morning papers, evidently

newly studied, near at hand. Beside the couch was a wooden

chair, and on the angle of the back hung a very seedy and

disreputable hard-felt hat, much the worse for wear, and cracked