“It’s as well,” said the old man; “it’s a question whether I shall live to the Assizes,so it matters little to me, but I should wish to spare Alice the shock.And now I will make the thing clear to you; it has been a long time in the acting, but will not take me long to tell.
“You didn’t know this dead man, McCarthy. He was a devil incarnate. I tell you that.God keep you out of the clutches of such a man as he. His grip has been upon me these twenty years,and he has blasted my life. I’ll tell you first how I came to be in his power.
“It was in the early ’60’s at the diggings. I was a young chap then, hot-blooded and reckless,ready to turn my hand at anything; I got among bad companions, took to drink,had no luck with my claim, took to the bush,and in a word became what you would call over here a highway robber. There were six of us,and we had a wild, free life of it, sticking up a station from time to time,or stopping the wagons on the road to the diggings.Black Jack of Ballarat was the name I went under,and our party is still remembered in the colony as the Ballarat Gang.
“One day a gold convoy came down from Ballarat to Melbourne,and we lay in wait for it and attacked it. There were six troopers and six of us,so it was a close thing, but we emptied four of their saddles at the first volley.Three of our boys were killed, however, before we got the swag.I put my pistol to the head of the wagon-driver, who was this very man McCarthy.I wish to the Lord that I had shot him then, but I spared him,though I saw his wicked little eyes fixed on my face, as though to remember every feature.We got away with the gold, became wealthy men,and made our way over to England without being suspected.There I parted from my old pals and determined to settle down to a quiet and respectable life.I bought this estate, which chanced to be in the market,and I set myself to do a little good with my money,to make up for the way in which I had earned it. I married, too,and though my wife died young she left me my dear little Alice.Even when she was just a baby her wee hand seemed to lead me down the right path as nothing else had ever done.In a word, I turned over a new leaf and did my best to make up for the past.All was going well when McCarthy laid his grip upon me.
“I had gone up to town about an investment,and I met him in Regent Street with hardly a coat to his back or a boot to his foot.
“‘Here we are, Jack,’ says he, touching me on the arm; ‘we’ll be as good as a family to you.There’s two of us, me and my son, and you can have the keeping of us. If you don’t—it’s a fine,law-abiding country is England, and there’s always a policeman within hail.’
“Well, down they came to the west country, there was no shaking them off,and there they have lived rent free on my best land ever since. There was no rest for me, no peace,no forgetfulness; turn where I would, there was his cunning, grinning face at my elbow.It grew worse as Alice grew up, for he soon saw I was more afraid of her knowing my past than of the police.Whatever he wanted he must have, and whatever it was I gave him without question, land, money,houses, until at last he asked a thing which I could not give. He asked for Alice.
“His son, you see, had grown up, and so had my girl, and as I was known to be in weak health,it seemed a fine stroke to him that his lad should step into the whole property.But there I was firm. I would not have his cursed stock mixed with mine;not that I had any dislike to the lad, but his blood was in him, and that was enough. I stood firm.McCarthy threatened. I braved him to do his worst.We were to meet at the pool midway between our houses to talk it over.
“When I went down there I found him talking with his son,so I 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, gentlemen, 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.
V. 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 surmise than on that absolute logical proof which was so dear to him.There is, however, one of these last which was so remarkable 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 barque _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 circumstances 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 recognise the presence of those great elemental forces which shriek at mankind through the bars of his civilisation, 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 refinement 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.
“I 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 extending 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 overpowering 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 the treble K which I had read in the morning upon the envelope.
“‘I wish you, John,’ said my uncle, ‘to witness my will. I leave my estate,with all its advantages and all its disadvantages, to my brother, your father, whence it will,no doubt, descend to you. If you can enjoy it in peace, well and good!If you find you cannot, take my advice, my boy, and leave it to your deadliest enemy.I am sorry to give you such a two-edged thing, but I can’t say what turn things are going to take.Kindly sign the paper where Mr. Fordham shows you.’
“I signed the paper as directed, and the lawyer took it away with him. The singular incident made,as you may think, the deepest impression upon me,and I pondered over it and turned it every way in my mind without being able to make anything of it.Yet I could not shake off the vague feeling of dread which it left behind,though the sensation grew less keen as the weeks passed and nothing happened to disturb the usual routine of our lives.I could see a change in my uncle, however. He drank more than ever,and he was less inclined for any sort of society. Most of his time he would spend in his room,with the door locked upon the inside, but sometimes he would emerge in a sort of drunken frenzy and would burst out of the house and tear about the garden with a revolver in his hand, screaming out that he was afraid of no man, and that he was not to be cooped up, like a sheep in a pen, by man or devil. When these hot fits were over, however, he would rush tumultuously in at the door and lock and bar it behind him, like a man who can brazen it out no longer against the terror which lies at the roots of his soul. At such times I have seen his face, even on a cold day, glisten with moisture, as though it were new raised from a basin.
“Well, to come to an end of the matter, Mr. Holmes, and not to abuse your patience,there came a night when he made one of those drunken sallies from which he never came back.We found him, when we went to search for him, face downward in a little green-scummed pool,which lay at the foot of the garden. There was no sign of any violence,and the water was but two feet deep, so that the jury, having regard to his known eccentricity,brought in a verdict of ‘suicide.’ But I, who knew how he winced from the very thought of death,had much ado to persuade myself that he had gone out of his way to meet it. The matter passed,however, and my father entered into possession of the estate, and of some £ 14,000, which lay to his credit at the bank.”
“One moment,” Holmes interposed, “your statement is, I foresee,one of the most remarkable to which I have ever listened.Let me have the date of the reception by your uncle of the letter, and the date of his supposed suicide.”
“The letter arrived on March 10, 1883. His death was seven weeks later, upon the night of May 2nd.”
“Thank you. Pray proceed.”
“When my father took over the Horsham property, he, at my request,made a careful examination of the attic, which had been always locked up.We found the brass box there, although its contents had been destroyed.On the inside of the cover was a paper label, with the initials of K. K. K. repeated upon it,and ‘Letters, memoranda, receipts, and a register’ written beneath. These, we presume,indicated the nature of the papers which had been destroyed by Colonel Openshaw. For the rest,there was nothing of much importance in the attic save a great many scattered papers and note-books bearing upon my uncle’s life in America.Some of them were of the war time and showed that he had done his duty well and had borne the repute of a brave soldier.Others were of a date during the reconstruction of the Southern states,and were mostly concerned with politics,for he had evidently taken a strong part in opposing the carpet-bag politicians who had been sent down from the North.
“Well, it was the beginning of ’84 when my father came to live at Horsham,and all went as well as possible with us until the January of’85.On the fourth day after the new year I heard my father give a sharp cry of surprise as we sat together at the breakfast-table.There he was, sitting with a newly opened envelope in one hand and five dried orange pips in the outstretched palm of the other one.He had always laughed at what he called my cock-and-bull story about the colonel,but he looked very scared and puzzled now that the same thing had come upon himself.
“‘Why, what on earth does this mean, John?’ he stammered.
“My heart had turned to lead. ‘It is K. K. K.,’ said I.
“He looked inside the envelope. ‘So it is,’ he cried. ‘Here are the very letters. But what is this written above them?’
“‘Put the papers on the sundial,’ I read, peeping over his shoulder.
“‘What papers?What sundial?’ he asked.
“‘The sundial in the garden. There is no other,’ said I;‘but the papers must be those that are destroyed.’
“‘Pooh!’ said he, gripping hard at his courage. ‘We are in a civilised land here,and we can’t have tomfoolery of this kind. Where does the thing come from?’
“‘From Dundee,’ I answered, glancing at the postmark.
“‘Some preposterous practical joke,’ said he. ‘What have I to do with sundials and papers?I shall take no notice of such nonsense.’
“‘I should certainly speak to the police,’ I said.
“‘And be laughed at for my pains. Nothing of the sort.’
“‘Then let me do so?’
“‘No, I forbid you. I won’t have a fuss made about such nonsense.’
“It was in vain to argue with him, for he was a very obstinate man. I went about, however,with a heart which was full of forebodings.
“On the third day after the coming of the letter my father went from home to visit an old friend of his,Major Freebody, who is in command of one of the forts upon Portsdown Hill.I was glad that he should go, for it seemed to me that he was farther from danger when he was away from home.In that, however, I was in error. Upon the second day of his absence I received a telegram from the major,imploring me to come at once. My father had fallen over one of the deep chalk-pits which abound in the neighbourhood,and was lying senseless, with a shattered skull. I hurried to him,but he passed away without having ever recovered his consciousness. He had, as it appears,been returning from Fareham in the twilight, and as the country was unknown to him,and the chalk-pit unfenced, the jury had no hesitation in bringing in a verdict of ‘death from accidental causes.’ Carefully as I examined every fact connected with his death,I was unable to find anything which could suggest the idea of murder.There were no signs of violence, no footmarks, no robbery,no record of strangers having been seen upon the roads.And yet I need not tell you that my mind was far from at ease,and that I was well-nigh certain that some foul plot had been woven round him.
“In this sinister way I came into my inheritance. You will ask me why I did not dispose of it?I answer, because I was well convinced that our troubles were in some way dependent upon an incident in my uncle’s life,and that the danger would be as pressing in one house as in another.
“It was in January, ’85, that my poor father met his end,and two years and eight months have elapsed since then.During that time I have lived happily at Horsham,and I had begun to hope that this curse had passed away from the family,and that it had ended with the last generation. I had begun to take comfort too soon, however;yesterday morning the blow fell in the very shape in which it had come upon my father.”
The young man took from his waistcoat a crumpled envelope,and turning to the table he shook out upon it five little dried orange pips.
“This is the envelope,” he continued. “The postmark is London—eastern division.Within are the very words which were upon my father’s last message: ‘K. K. K.’;and then ‘Put the papers on the sundial.’”
“What have you done?” asked Holmes.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“To tell the truth”—he sank his face into his thin, white hands—“I have felt helpless.I have felt like one of those poor rabbits when the snake is writhing towards it.I seem to be in the grasp of some resistless, inexorable evil,which no foresight and no precautions can guard against.”
“Tut!tut!” cried Sherlock Holmes. “You must act, man, or you are lost. Nothing but energy can save you. This is no time for despair.”
“I have seen the police.”
“Ah!”
“But they listened to my story with a smile.I am convinced that the inspector has formed the opinion that the letters are all practical jokes,and that the deaths of my relations were really accidents, as the jury stated,and were not to be connected with the warnings.”
Holmes shook his clenched hands in the air. “Incredible imbecility!” he cried.
“They have, however, allowed me a policeman, who may remain in the house with me.”
“Has he come with you to-night?”
“No. His orders were to stay in the house.”
Again Holmes raved in the air.
“Why did you come to me?” he said, “and, above all, why did you not come at once?”
“I did not know. It was only to-day that I spoke to Major Prendergast about my troubles and was advised by him to come to you. ”
“It is really two days since you had the letter. We should have acted before this.You have no further evidence, I suppose,than that which you have placed before us—no suggestive detail which might help us?”
“There is one thing,” said John Openshaw. He rummaged in his coat pocket, and,drawing out a piece of discoloured, blue-tinted paper, he laid it out upon the table.“I have some remembrance,” said he, “that on the day when my uncle burned the papers I observed that the small,unburned margins which lay amid the ashes were of this particular colour.I found this single sheet upon the floor of his room,and I am inclined to think that it may be one of the papers which has, perhaps,fluttered out from among the others, and in that way has escaped destruction.Beyond the mention of pips, I do not see that it helps us much.I think myself that it is a page from some private diary. The writing is undoubtedly my uncle’s.”
Holmes moved the lamp, and we both bent over the sheet of paper,which showed by its ragged edge that it had indeed been torn from a book. It was headed, “March,1869,” and beneath were the following enigmatical notices:
“4th. Hudson came. Same old platform.
“7th. Set the pips on McCauley, Paramore, and John Swain of St. Augustine.
“9th. McCauley cleared.
“10th. John Swain cleared.
“12th. Visited Paramore. All well.”
“Thank you!” said Holmes, folding up the paper and returning it to our visitor.“And now you must on no account lose another instant.We cannot spare time even to discuss what you have told me. You must get home instantly and act.”
“What shall I do?”
“There is but one thing to do. It must be done at once.You must put this piece of paper which you have shown us into the brass box which you have described.You must also put in a note to say that all the other papers were burned by your uncle,and that this is the only one which remains.You must assert that in such words as will carry conviction with them. Having done this,you must at once put the box out upon the sundial, as directed. Do you understand?”
“Entirely.”
“Do not think of revenge, or anything of the sort, at present.I think that we may gain that by means of the law; but we have our web to weave,while theirs is already woven. The first consideration is to remove the pressing danger which threatens you.The second is to clear up the mystery and to punish the guilty parties.”
“I thank you,” said the young man, rising and pulling on his overcoat.“You have given me fresh life and hope. I shall certainly do as you advise.”
“Do not lose an instant. And, above all, take care of yourself in the meanwhile,for I do not think that there can be a doubt that you are threatened by a very real and imminent danger. How do you go back?”
“By train from Waterloo.”
“It is not yet nine. The streets will be crowded, so I trust that you may be in safety.And yet you cannot guard yourself too closely.”
“I am armed.”
“That is well. To-morrow I shall set to work upon your case.”
“I shall see you at Horsham, then?”
“No, your secret lies in London. It is there that I shall seek it.”
“Then I shall call upon you in a day, or in two days, with news as to the box and the papers.I shall take your advice in every particular.” He shook hands with us and took his leave.Outside the wind still screamed and the rain splashed and pattered against the windows.This strange, wild story seemed to have come to us from amid the mad elements—blown in upon us like a sheet of sea-weed in a gale—and now to have been reabsorbed by them once more.
Sherlock Holmes sat for some time in silence,with his head sunk forward and his eyes bent upon the red glow of the fire. Then he lit his pipe,and leaning back in his chair he watched the blue smoke-rings as they chased each other up to the ceiling.