“‘You are mad, Elise!’ he shouted, struggling to break away from her.‘You will be the ruin of us. He has seen too much. Let me pass, I say!’ He dashed her to one side, and, rushing to the window,cut at me with his heavy weapon. I had let myself go,and was hanging by the hands to the sill,when his blow fell. I was conscious of a dull pain,my grip loosened, and I fell into the garden below.
“I was shaken but not hurt by the fall;so I picked myself up and rushed off among the bushes as hard as I could run,for I understood that I was far from being out of danger yet.Suddenly, however, as I ran,a deadly dizziness and sickness came over me.I glanced down at my hand,which was throbbing painfully, and then,for the first time,saw that my thumb had been cut off and that the blood was pouring from my wound. I endeavoured to tie my handkerchief round it, but there came a sudden buzzing in my ears, and next moment I fell in a dead faint among the rose-bushes.
“How long I remained unconscious I cannot tell.It must have been a very long time,for the moon had sunk,and a bright morning was breaking when I came to myself.My clothes were all sodden with dew,and my coat-sleeve was drenched with blood from my wounded thumb.The smarting of it recalled in an instant all the particulars of my night’s adventure, and I sprang to my feet with the feeling that I might hardly yet be safe from my pursuers. But to my astonishment, when I came to look round me, neither house nor garden were to be seen. I had been lying in an angle of the hedge close by the high road, and just a little lower down was a long building, which proved, upon my approaching it, to be the very station at which I had arrived upon the previous night. Were it not for the ugly wound upon my hand, all that had passed during those dreadful hours might have been an evil dream.
“Half dazed, I went into the station and asked about the morning train.There would be one to Reading in less than an hour.The same porter was on duty, I found,as had been there when I arrived.I inquired of him whether he had ever heard of Colonel Lysander Stark.The name was strange to him.Had he observed a carriage the night before waiting for me?No, he had not. Was there a police-station anywhere near?There was one about three miles off.
“It was too far for me to go, weak and ill as I was.I determined to wait until I got back to town before telling my story to the police. It was a little past six when I arrived, so I went first to have my wound dressed, and then the doctor was kind enough to bring me along here. I put the case into your hands and shall do exactly what you advise.”
We both sat in silence for some little time after listening to this extraordinary narrative. Then Sherlock Holmes pulled down from the shelf one of the ponderous commonplace books in which he placed his cuttings.
“Here is an advertisement which will interest you,” said he. “It appeared in all the papers about a year ago.Listen to this: ‘Lost, on the 9th inst., Mr.Jeremiah Hayling, aged twenty-six,a hydraulic engineer.Left his lodgings at ten o’clock at night,and has not been heard of since. Was dressed in,’ etc., etc. Ha!That represents the last time that the colonel needed to have his machine overhauled, I fancy.”
“Good heavens!” cried my patient. “Then that explains what the girl said. ”
“Undoubtedly. It is quite clear that the colonel was a cool and desperate man,who was absolutely determined that nothing should stand in the way of his little game, like those out-and-out pirates who will leave no survivor from a captured ship. Well, every moment now is precious, so if you feel equal to it we shall go down to Scotland Yard at once as a preliminary to starting for Eyford.”
Some three hours or so afterwards we were all in the train together,bound from Reading to the little Berkshire village.There were Sherlock Holmes, the hydraulic engineer,Inspector Bradstreet, of Scotland Yard,a plain-clothes man, and myself.Bradstreet had spread an ordnance map of the county out upon the seat and was busy with his compasses drawing a circle with Eyford for its centre.
“There you are,” said he.“That circle is drawn at a radius of ten miles from the village.The place we want must be somewhere near that line.You said ten miles, I think, sir.”
“It was an hour’s good drive.”
“And you think that they brought you back all that way when you were unconscious?”
“They must have done so. I have a confused memory, too,of having been lifted and conveyed somewhere.”
“What I cannot understand,” said I,“is why they should have spared you when they found you lying fainting in the garden. Perhaps the villain was softened by the woman’s entreaties.”
“I hardly think that likely.I never saw a more inexorable face in my life.”
“Oh, we shall soon clear up all that,” said Bradstreet.“Well, I have drawn my circle,and I only wish I knew at what point upon it the folk that we are in search of are to be found.”
“I think I could lay my finger on it,” said Holmes quietly.
“Really, now!” cried the inspector, “you have formed your opinion!Come, now, we shall see who agrees with you.I say it is south, for the country is more deserted there. ”
“And I say east,” said my patient.
“I am for west,” remarked the plain-clothes man.“There are several quiet little villages up there.”
“And I am for north,” said I,“because there are no hills there,and our friend says that he did not notice the carriage go up any. ”
“Come,” cried the inspector, laughing;“it’s a very pretty diversity of opinion.We have boxed the compass among us.Who do you give your casting vote to?”
“You are all wrong.”
“But we can’t all be.”
“Oh, yes, you can. This is my point.” He placed his finger in the centre of the circle.“This is where we shall find them.”
“But the twelve-mile drive?” gasped Hatherley.
“Six out and six back. Nothing simpler.You say yourself that the horse was fresh and glossy when you got in.How could it be that if it had gone twelve miles over heavy roads?”
“Indeed, it is a likely ruse enough,” observed Bradstreet thoughtfully.“Of course there can be no doubt as to the nature of this gang. ”
“None at all,” said Holmes.“They are coiners on a large scale,and have used the machine to form the amalgam which has taken the place of silver.”
“We have known for some time that a clever gang was at work,” said the inspector.“They have been turning out half-crowns by the thousand.We even traced them as far as Reading,but could get no farther,for they had covered their traces in a way that showed that they were very old hands. But now, thanks to this lucky chance, I think that we have got them right enough.”
But the inspector was mistaken,for those criminals were not destined to fall into the hands of justice.As we rolled into Eyford Station we saw a gigantic column of smoke which streamed up from behind a small clump of trees in the neighbourhood and hung like an immense ostrich feather over the landscape.
“A house on fire?” asked Bradstreet as the train steamed off again on its way.
“Yes, sir!” said the station-master.
“When did it break out?”
“I hear that it was during the night, sir,but it has got worse,and the whole place is in a blaze.”
“Whose house is it?”
“Dr. Becher’s.”
“Tell me,” broke in the engineer, “is Dr.Becher a German, very thin, with a long, sharp nose?”
The station-master laughed heartily. “No, sir, Dr.Becher is an Englishman,and there isn’t a man in the parish who has a better-lined waistcoat.But he has a gentleman staying with him, a patient,as I understand, who is a foreigner,and he looks as if a little good Berkshire beef would do him no harm. ”