The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
the colonel looking down at me.
“‘What are you doing there?’ he asked.
“I felt angry at having been tricked by so elaborate a story as that
which he had told me. ‘I was admiring your fuller’s-earth,’ said I; ‘I
think that I should be better able to advise you as to your machine if
I knew what the exact purpose was for which it was used.’
“The instant that I uttered the words I regretted the rashness of my
speech. His face set hard, and a baleful light sprang up in his grey
eyes.
“‘Very well,’ said he, ‘you shall know all about the machine.’ He took
a step backward, slammed the little door, and turned the key in the
lock. I rushed towards it and pulled at the handle, but it was quite
secure, and did not give in the least to my kicks and shoves. ‘Hullo!’
I yelled. ‘Hullo! Colonel! Let me out!’
“And then suddenly in the silence I heard a sound which sent my heart
into my mouth. It was the clank of the levers and the swish of the
leaking cylinder. He had set the engine at work. The lamp still stood
upon the floor where I had placed it when examining the trough. By its
light I saw that the black ceiling was coming down upon me, slowly,
jerkily, but, as none knew better than myself, with a force which must
within a minute grind me to a shapeless pulp. I threw myself,
screaming, against the door, and dragged with my nails at the lock. I
implored the colonel to let me out, but the remorseless clanking of the
levers drowned my cries. The ceiling was only a foot or two above my
head, and with my hand upraised I could feel its hard, rough surface.
Then it flashed through my mind that the pain of my death would depend
very much upon the position in which I met it. If I lay on my face the
weight would come upon my spine, and I shuddered to think of that
dreadful snap. Easier the other way, perhaps; and yet, had I the nerve
to lie and look up at that deadly black shadow wavering down upon me?
Already I was unable to stand erect, when my eye caught something which
brought a gush of hope back to my heart.
“I have said that though the floor and ceiling were of iron, the walls
were of wood. As I gave a last hurried glance around, I saw a thin line
of yellow light between two of the boards, which broadened and
broadened as a small panel was pushed backward. For an instant I could
hardly believe that here was indeed a door which led away from death.
The next instant I threw myself through, and lay half-fainting upon the
other side. The panel had closed again behind me, but the crash of the
lamp, and a few moments afterwards the clang of the two slabs of metal,
told me how narrow had been my escape.
“I was recalled to myself by a frantic plucking at my wrist, and I
found myself lying upon the stone floor of a narrow corridor, while a
woman bent over me and tugged at me with her left hand, while she held
a candle in her right. It was the same good friend whose warning I had
so foolishly rejected.
“‘Come! come!’ she cried breathlessly. ‘They will be here in a moment.
They will see that you are not there. Oh, do not waste the so-precious
time, but come!’
“This time, at least, I did not scorn her advice. I staggered to my
feet and ran with her along the corridor and down a winding stair. The
latter led to another broad passage, and just as we reached it we heard
the sound of running feet and the shouting of two voices, one answering
the other from the floor on which we were and from the one beneath. My
guide stopped and looked about her like one who is at her wit’s end.
Then she threw open a door which led into a bedroom, through the window
of which the moon was shining brightly.
“‘It is your only chance,’ said she. ‘It is high, but it may be that
you can jump it.’
“As she spoke a light sprang into view at the further end of the
passage, and I saw the lean figure of Colonel Lysander Stark rushing
forward with a lantern in one hand and a weapon like a butcher’s
cleaver in the other. I rushed across the bedroom, flung open the
window, and looked out. How quiet and sweet and wholesome the garden
looked in the moonlight, and it could not be more than thirty feet
down. I clambered out upon the sill, but I hesitated to jump until I
should have heard what passed between my saviour and the ruffian who
pursued me. If she were ill-used, then at any risks I was determined to
go back to her assistance. The thought had hardly flashed through my
mind before he was at the door, pushing his way past her; but she threw
her arms round him and tried to hold him back.
“‘Fritz! Fritz!’ she cried in English, ‘remember your promise after the
last time. You said it should not be again. He will be silent! Oh, he
will be silent!’
“‘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.