The Return of Sherlock Holmes
THE ADVENTURE OF BLACK PETER
I have never known my friend to be in better form, both mental
and physical, than in the year ’95. His increasing fame had
brought with it an immense practice, and I should be guilty of an
indiscretion if I were even to hint at the identity of some of
the illustrious clients who crossed our humble threshold in Baker
Street. Holmes, however, like all great artists, lived for his
art’s sake, and, save in the case of the Duke of Holdernesse, I
have seldom known him claim any large reward for his inestimable
services. So unworldly was he—or so capricious—that he frequently
refused his help to the powerful and wealthy where the problem
made no appeal to his sympathies, while he would devote weeks of
most intense application to the affairs of some humble client
whose case presented those strange and dramatic qualities which
appealed to his imagination and challenged his ingenuity.
In this memorable year ’95, a curious and incongruous succession
of cases had engaged his attention, ranging from his famous
investigation of the sudden death of Cardinal Tosca—an inquiry
which was carried out by him at the express desire of His
Holiness the Pope—down to his arrest of Wilson, the notorious
canary-trainer, which removed a plague-spot from the East End of
London. Close on the heels of these two famous cases came the
tragedy of Woodman’s Lee, and the very obscure circumstances
which surrounded the death of Captain Peter Carey. No record of
the doings of Mr. Sherlock Holmes would be complete which did not
include some account of this very unusual affair.
During the first week of July, my friend had been absent so often
and so long from our lodgings that I knew he had something on
hand. The fact that several rough-looking men called during that
time and inquired for Captain Basil made me understand that
Holmes was working somewhere under one of the numerous disguises
and names with which he concealed his own formidable identity. He
had at least five small refuges in different parts of London, in
which he was able to change his personality. He said nothing of
his business to me, and it was not my habit to force a
confidence. The first positive sign which he gave me of the
direction which his investigation was taking was an extraordinary
one. He had gone out before breakfast, and I had sat down to mine
when he strode into the room, his hat upon his head and a huge
barbed-headed spear tucked like an umbrella under his arm.
“Good gracious, Holmes!” I cried. “You don’t mean to say that you
have been walking about London with that thing?”
“I drove to the butcher’s and back.”
“The butcher’s?”
“And I return with an excellent appetite. There can be no
question, my dear Watson, of the value of exercise before
breakfast. But I am prepared to bet that you will not guess the
form that my exercise has taken.”
“I will not attempt it.”
He chuckled as he poured out the coffee.
“If you could have looked into Allardyce’s back shop, you would
have seen a dead pig swung from a hook in the ceiling, and a
gentleman in his shirt sleeves furiously stabbing at it with this
weapon. I was that energetic person, and I have satisfied myself
that by no exertion of my strength can I transfix the pig with a
single blow. Perhaps you would care to try?”
“Not for worlds. But why were you doing this?”
“Because it seemed to me to have an indirect bearing upon the
mystery of Woodman’s Lee. Ah, Hopkins, I got your wire last
night, and I have been expecting you. Come and join us.”
Our visitor was an exceedingly alert man, thirty years of age,
dressed in a quiet tweed suit, but retaining the erect bearing of
one who was accustomed to official uniform. I recognized him at
once as Stanley Hopkins, a young police inspector, for whose
future Holmes had high hopes, while he in turn professed the
admiration and respect of a pupil for the scientific methods of
the famous amateur. Hopkins’s brow was clouded, and he sat down
with an air of deep dejection.
“No, thank you, sir. I breakfasted before I came round. I spent
the night in town, for I came up yesterday to report.”
“And what had you to report?”
“Failure, sir, absolute failure.”
“You have made no progress?”
“None.”
“Dear me! I must have a look at the matter.”
“I wish to heavens that you would, Mr. Holmes. It’s my first big
chance, and I am at my wits’ end. For goodness’ sake, come down
and lend me a hand.”
“Well, well, it just happens that I have already read all the
available evidence, including the report of the inquest, with
some care. By the way, what do you make of that tobacco pouch,
found on the scene of the crime? Is there no clue there?”
Hopkins looked surprised.
“It was the man’s own pouch, sir. His initials were inside it.
And it was of sealskin,—and he was an old sealer.”
“But he had no pipe.”
“No, sir, we could find no pipe. Indeed, he smoked very little,
and yet he might have kept some tobacco for his friends.”
“No doubt. I only mention it because, if I had been handling the
case, I should have been inclined to make that the starting-point
of my investigation. However, my friend, Dr. Watson, knows
nothing of this matter, and I should be none the worse for
hearing the sequence of events once more. Just give us some short
sketches of the essentials.”
Stanley Hopkins drew a slip of paper from his pocket.
“I have a few dates here which will give you the career of the
dead man, Captain Peter Carey. He was born in ’45—fifty years of
age. He was a most daring and successful seal and whale fisher.
In 1883 he commanded the steam sealer _Sea Unicorn_, of Dundee.
He had then had several successful voyages in succession, and in
the following year, 1884, he retired. After that he travelled for
some years, and finally he bought a small place called Woodman’s
Lee, near Forest Row, in Sussex. There he has lived for six
years, and there he died just a week ago to-day.
“There were some most singular points about the man. In ordinary
life, he was a strict Puritan—a silent, gloomy fellow. His
household consisted of his wife, his daughter, aged twenty, and
two female servants. These last were continually changing, for it
was never a very cheery situation, and sometimes it became past
all bearing. The man was an intermittent drunkard, and when he
had the fit on him he was a perfect fiend. He has been known to
drive his wife and daughter out of doors in the middle of the
night and flog them through the park until the whole village
outside the gates was aroused by their screams.
“He was summoned once for a savage assault upon the old vicar,
who had called upon him to remonstrate with him upon his conduct.
In short, Mr. Holmes, you would go far before you found a more
dangerous man than Peter Carey, and I have heard that he bore the
same character when he commanded his ship. He was known in the
trade as Black Peter, and the name was given him, not only on
account of his swarthy features and the colour of his huge beard,
but for the humours which were the terror of all around him. I
need not say that he was loathed and avoided by every one of his
neighbours, and that I have not heard one single word of sorrow
about his terrible end.
“You must have read in the account of the inquest about the man’s
cabin, Mr. Holmes, but perhaps your friend here has not heard of
it. He had built himself a wooden outhouse—he always called it
the ‘cabin’—a few hundred yards from his house, and it was here
that he slept every night. It was a little, single-roomed hut,
sixteen feet by ten. He kept the key in his pocket, made his own
bed, cleaned it himself, and allowed no other foot to cross the
threshold. There are small windows on each side, which were
covered by curtains and never opened. One of these windows was
turned towards the high road, and when the light burned in it at
night the folk used to point it out to each other and wonder what
Black Peter was doing in there. That’s the window, Mr. Holmes,
which gave us one of the few bits of positive evidence that came
out at the inquest.
“You remember that a stonemason, named Slater, walking from
Forest Row about one o’clock in the morning—two days before the
murder—stopped as he passed the grounds and looked at the square
of light still shining among the trees. He swears that the shadow
of a man’s head turned sideways was clearly visible on the blind,
and that this shadow was certainly not that of Peter Carey, whom
he knew well. It was that of a bearded man, but the beard was
short and bristled forward in a way very different from that of
the captain. So he says, but he had been two hours in the
public-house, and it is some distance from the road to the
window. Besides, this refers to the Monday, and the crime was
done upon the Wednesday.
“On the Tuesday, Peter Carey was in one of his blackest moods,
flushed with drink and as savage as a dangerous wild beast. He
roamed about the house, and the women ran for it when they heard
him coming. Late in the evening, he went down to his own hut.
About two o’clock the following morning, his daughter, who slept
with her window open, heard a most fearful yell from that
direction, but it was no unusual thing for him to bawl and shout
when he was in drink, so no notice was taken. On rising at seven,
one of the maids noticed that the door of the hut was open, but
so great was the terror which the man caused that it was midday
before anyone would venture down to see what had become of him.
Peeping into the open door, they saw a sight which sent them
flying, with white faces, into the village. Within an hour, I was
on the spot and had taken over the case.
“Well, I have fairly steady nerves, as you know, Mr. Holmes, but
I give you my word, that I got a shake when I put my head into
that little house. It was droning like a harmonium with the flies
and bluebottles, and the floor and walls were like a
slaughter-house. He had called it a cabin, and a cabin it was,
sure enough, for you would have thought that you were in a ship.
There was a bunk at one end, a sea-chest, maps and charts, a
picture of the _Sea Unicorn_, a line of logbooks on a shelf, all
exactly as one would expect to find it in a captain’s room. And
there, in the middle of it, was the man himself—his face twisted
like a lost soul in torment, and his great brindled beard stuck
upward in his agony. Right through his broad breast a steel
harpoon had been driven, and it had sunk deep into the wood of
the wall behind him. He was pinned like a beetle on a card. Of
course, he was quite dead, and had been so from the instant that
he had uttered that last yell of agony.