A Study in Scarlet
“It was some time before I found out where my two gentlemen were
living; but I inquired and inquired until at last I dropped across
them. They were at a boarding-house at Camberwell, over on the other
side of the river. When once I found them out I knew that I had them at
my mercy. I had grown my beard, and there was no chance of their
recognizing me. I would dog them and follow them until I saw my
opportunity. I was determined that they should not escape me again.
“They were very near doing it for all that. Go where they would about
London, I was always at their heels. Sometimes I followed them on my
cab, and sometimes on foot, but the former was the best, for then they
could not get away from me. It was only early in the morning or late at
night that I could earn anything, so that I began to get behindhand
with my employer. I did not mind that, however, as long as I could lay
my hand upon the men I wanted.
“They were very cunning, though. They must have thought that there was
some chance of their being followed, for they would never go out alone,
and never after nightfall. During two weeks I drove behind them every
day, and never once saw them separate. Drebber himself was drunk half
the time, but Stangerson was not to be caught napping. I watched them
late and early, but never saw the ghost of a chance; but I was not
discouraged, for something told me that the hour had almost come. My
only fear was that this thing in my chest might burst a little too soon
and leave my work undone.
“At last, one evening I was driving up and down Torquay Terrace, as the
street was called in which they boarded, when I saw a cab drive up to
their door. Presently some luggage was brought out, and after a time
Drebber and Stangerson followed it, and drove off. I whipped up my
horse and kept within sight of them, feeling very ill at ease, for I
feared that they were going to shift their quarters. At Euston Station
they got out, and I left a boy to hold my horse, and followed them on
to the platform. I heard them ask for the Liverpool train, and the
guard answer that one had just gone and there would not be another for
some hours. Stangerson seemed to be put out at that, but Drebber was
rather pleased than otherwise. I got so close to them in the bustle
that I could hear every word that passed between them. Drebber said
that he had a little business of his own to do, and that if the other
would wait for him he would soon rejoin him. His companion remonstrated
with him, and reminded him that they had resolved to stick together.
Drebber answered that the matter was a delicate one, and that he must
go alone. I could not catch what Stangerson said to that, but the other
burst out swearing, and reminded him that he was nothing more than his
paid servant, and that he must not presume to dictate to him. On that
the Secretary gave it up as a bad job, and simply bargained with him
that if he missed the last train he should rejoin him at Halliday’s
Private Hotel; to which Drebber answered that he would be back on the
platform before eleven, and made his way out of the station.
“The moment for which I had waited so long had at last come. I had my
enemies within my power. Together they could protect each other, but
singly they were at my mercy. I did not act, however, with undue
precipitation. My plans were already formed. There is no satisfaction
in vengeance unless the offender has time to realize who it is that
strikes him, and why retribution has come upon him. I had my plans
arranged by which I should have the opportunity of making the man who
had wronged me understand that his old sin had found him out. It
chanced that some days before a gentleman who had been engaged in
looking over some houses in the Brixton Road had dropped the key of one
of them in my carriage. It was claimed that same evening, and returned;
but in the interval I had taken a moulding of it, and had a duplicate
constructed. By means of this I had access to at least one spot in this
great city where I could rely upon being free from interruption. How to
get Drebber to that house was the difficult problem which I had now to
solve.
“He walked down the road and went into one or two liquor shops, staying
for nearly half-an-hour in the last of them. When he came out he
staggered in his walk, and was evidently pretty well on. There was a
hansom just in front of me, and he hailed it. I followed it so close
that the nose of my horse was within a yard of his driver the whole
way. We rattled across Waterloo Bridge and through miles of streets,
until, to my astonishment, we found ourselves back in the Terrace in
which he had boarded. I could not imagine what his intention was in
returning there; but I went on and pulled up my cab a hundred yards or
so from the house. He entered it, and his hansom drove away. Give me a
glass of water, if you please. My mouth gets dry with the talking.”
I handed him the glass, and he drank it down.
“That’s better,” he said. “Well, I waited for a quarter of an hour, or
more, when suddenly there came a noise like people struggling inside
the house. Next moment the door was flung open and two men appeared,
one of whom was Drebber, and the other was a young chap whom I had
never seen before. This fellow had Drebber by the collar, and when they
came to the head of the steps he gave him a shove and a kick which sent
him half across the road. ‘You hound,’ he cried, shaking his stick at
him; ‘I’ll teach you to insult an honest girl!’ He was so hot that I
think he would have thrashed Drebber with his cudgel, only that the cur
staggered away down the road as fast as his legs would carry him. He
ran as far as the corner, and then, seeing my cab, he hailed me and
jumped in. ‘Drive me to Halliday’s Private Hotel,’ said he.
“When I had him fairly inside my cab, my heart jumped so with joy that
I feared lest at this last moment my aneurism might go wrong. I drove
along slowly, weighing in my own mind what it was best to do. I might
take him right out into the country, and there in some deserted lane
have my last interview with him. I had almost decided upon this, when
he solved the problem for me. The craze for drink had seized him again,
and he ordered me to pull up outside a gin palace. He went in, leaving
word that I should wait for him. There he remained until closing time,
and when he came out he was so far gone that I knew the game was in my
own hands.
“Don’t imagine that I intended to kill him in cold blood. It would only
have been rigid justice if I had done so, but I could not bring myself
to do it. I had long determined that he should have a show for his life
if he chose to take advantage of it. Among the many billets which I
have filled in America during my wandering life, I was once janitor and
sweeper out of the laboratory at York College. One day the professor
was lecturing on poisons, and he showed his students some alkaloid, as
he called it, which he had extracted from some South American arrow
poison, and which was so powerful that the least grain meant instant
death. I spotted the bottle in which this preparation was kept, and
when they were all gone, I helped myself to a little of it. I was a
fairly good dispenser, so I worked this alkaloid into small, soluble
pills, and each pill I put in a box with a similar pill made without
the poison. I determined at the time that when I had my chance, my
gentlemen should each have a draw out of one of these boxes, while I
ate the pill that remained. It would be quite as deadly, and a good
deal less noisy than firing across a handkerchief. From that day I had
always my pill boxes about with me, and the time had now come when I
was to use them.
“It was nearer one than twelve, and a wild, bleak night, blowing hard
and raining in torrents. Dismal as it was outside, I was glad within—so
glad that I could have shouted out from pure exultation. If any of you
gentlemen have ever pined for a thing, and longed for it during twenty
long years, and then suddenly found it within your reach, you would
understand my feelings. I lit a cigar, and puffed at it to steady my
nerves, but my hands were trembling, and my temples throbbing with
excitement. As I drove, I could see old John Ferrier and sweet Lucy
looking at me out of the darkness and smiling at me, just as plain as I
see you all in this room. All the way they were ahead of me, one on
each side of the horse until I pulled up at the house in the Brixton
Road.
“There was not a soul to be seen, nor a sound to be heard, except the
dripping of the rain. When I looked in at the window, I found Drebber
all huddled together in a drunken sleep. I shook him by the arm, ‘It’s
time to get out,’ I said.
“‘All right, cabby,’ said he.
“I suppose he thought we had come to the hotel that he had mentioned,
for he got out without another word, and followed me down the garden. I
had to walk beside him to keep him steady, for he was still a little
top-heavy. When we came to the door, I opened it, and led him into the
front room. I give you my word that all the way, the father and the
daughter were walking in front of us.
“‘It’s infernally dark,’ said he, stamping about.
“‘We’ll soon have a light,’ I said, striking a match and putting it to
a wax candle which I had brought with me. ‘Now, Enoch Drebber,’ I
continued, turning to him, and holding the light to my own face, ‘who
am I?’
“He gazed at me with bleared, drunken eyes for a moment, and then I saw
a horror spring up in them, and convulse his whole features, which
showed me that he knew me. He staggered back with a livid face, and I
saw the perspiration break out upon his brow, while his teeth chattered
in his head. At the sight, I leaned my back against the door and
laughed loud and long. I had always known that vengeance would be
sweet, but I had never hoped for the contentment of soul which now
possessed me.
“‘You dog!’ I said; ‘I have hunted you from Salt Lake City to St.
Petersburg, and you have always escaped me. Now, at last your
wanderings have come to an end, for either you or I shall never see
to-morrow’s sun rise.’ He shrunk still further away as I spoke, and I
could see on his face that he thought I was mad. So I was for the time.
The pulses in my temples beat like sledge-hammers, and I believe I
would have had a fit of some sort if the blood had not gushed from my
nose and relieved me.
“‘What do you think of Lucy Ferrier now?’ I cried, locking the door,
and shaking the key in his face. ‘Punishment has been slow in coming,
but it has overtaken you at last.’ I saw his coward lips tremble as I
spoke. He would have begged for his life, but he knew well that it was
useless.
“‘Would you murder me?’ he stammered.
“‘There is no murder,’ I answered. ‘Who talks of murdering a mad dog?
What mercy had you upon my poor darling, when you dragged her from her
slaughtered father, and bore her away to your accursed and shameless
harem.’
“‘It was not I who killed her father,’ he cried.
“‘But it was you who broke her innocent heart,’ I shrieked, thrusting
the box before him. ‘Let the high God judge between us. Choose and eat.
There is death in one and life in the other. I shall take what you
leave. Let us see if there is justice upon the earth, or if we are
ruled by chance.’
“He cowered away with wild cries and prayers for mercy, but I drew my
knife and held it to his throat until he had obeyed me. Then I
swallowed the other, and we stood facing one another in silence for a
minute or more, waiting to see which was to live and which was to die.
Shall I ever forget the look which came over his face when the first
warning pangs told him that the poison was in his system? I laughed as
I saw it, and held Lucy’s marriage ring in front of his eyes. It was