The Sign of the Four
however, are remarkably small. So intractable and fierce are they that
all the efforts of the British official have failed to win them over in
any degree. They have always been a terror to shipwrecked crews,
braining the survivors with their stone-headed clubs, or shooting them
with their poisoned arrows. These massacres are invariably concluded by
a cannibal feast.’ Nice, amiable people, Watson! If this fellow had
been left to his own unaided devices this affair might have taken an
even more ghastly turn. I fancy that, even as it is, Jonathan Small
would give a good deal not to have employed him.”
“But how came he to have so singular a companion?”
“Ah, that is more than I can tell. Since, however, we had already
determined that Small had come from the Andamans, it is not so very
wonderful that this islander should be with him. No doubt we shall know
all about it in time. Look here, Watson; you look regularly done. Lie
down there on the sofa, and see if I can put you to sleep.”
He took up his violin from the corner, and as I stretched myself out he
began to play some low, dreamy, melodious air,—his own, no doubt, for
he had a remarkable gift for improvisation. I have a vague remembrance
of his gaunt limbs, his earnest face, and the rise and fall of his bow.
Then I seemed to be floated peacefully away upon a soft sea of sound,
until I found myself in dreamland, with the sweet face of Mary Morstan
looking down upon me.
Chapter IX
A Break in the Chain
It was late in the afternoon before I woke, strengthened and refreshed.
Sherlock Holmes still sat exactly as I had left him, save that he had
laid aside his violin and was deep in a book. He looked across at me,
as I stirred, and I noticed that his face was dark and troubled.
“You have slept soundly,” he said. “I feared that our talk would wake
you.”
“I heard nothing,” I answered. “Have you had fresh news, then?”
“Unfortunately, no. I confess that I am surprised and disappointed. I
expected something definite by this time. Wiggins has just been up to
report. He says that no trace can be found of the launch. It is a
provoking check, for every hour is of importance.”
“Can I do anything? I am perfectly fresh now, and quite ready for
another night’s outing.”
“No, we can do nothing. We can only wait. If we go ourselves, the
message might come in our absence, and delay be caused. You can do what
you will, but I must remain on guard.”
“Then I shall run over to Camberwell and call upon Mrs. Cecil
Forrester. She asked me to, yesterday.”
“On Mrs. Cecil Forrester?” asked Holmes, with the twinkle of a smile in
his eyes.
“Well, of course Miss Morstan too. They were anxious to hear what
happened.”
“I would not tell them too much,” said Holmes. “Women are never to be
entirely trusted,—not the best of them.”
I did not pause to argue over this atrocious sentiment. “I shall be
back in an hour or two,” I remarked.
“All right! Good luck! But, I say, if you are crossing the river you
may as well return Toby, for I don’t think it is at all likely that we
shall have any use for him now.”
I took our mongrel accordingly, and left him, together with a
half-sovereign, at the old naturalist’s in Pinchin Lane. At Camberwell
I found Miss Morstan a little weary after her night’s adventures, but
very eager to hear the news. Mrs. Forrester, too, was full of
curiosity. I told them all that we had done, suppressing, however, the
more dreadful parts of the tragedy. Thus, although I spoke of Mr.
Sholto’s death, I said nothing of the exact manner and method of it.
With all my omissions, however, there was enough to startle and amaze
them.
“It is a romance!” cried Mrs. Forrester. “An injured lady, half a
million in treasure, a black cannibal, and a wooden-legged ruffian.
They take the place of the conventional dragon or wicked earl.”
“And two knight-errants to the rescue,” added Miss Morstan, with a
bright glance at me.
“Why, Mary, your fortune depends upon the issue of this search. I don’t
think that you are nearly excited enough. Just imagine what it must be
to be so rich, and to have the world at your feet!”
It sent a little thrill of joy to my heart to notice that she showed no
sign of elation at the prospect. On the contrary, she gave a toss of
her proud head, as though the matter were one in which she took small
interest.
“It is for Mr. Thaddeus Sholto that I am anxious,” she said. “Nothing
else is of any consequence; but I think that he has behaved most kindly
and honourably throughout. It is our duty to clear him of this dreadful
and unfounded charge.”
It was evening before I left Camberwell, and quite dark by the time I
reached home. My companion’s book and pipe lay by his chair, but he had
disappeared. I looked about in the hope of seeing a note, but there was
none.
“I suppose that Mr. Sherlock Holmes has gone out,” I said to Mrs.
Hudson as she came up to lower the blinds.
“No, sir. He has gone to his room, sir. Do you know, sir,” sinking her
voice into an impressive whisper, “I am afraid for his health?”
“Why so, Mrs. Hudson?”
“Well, he’s that strange, sir. After you was gone he walked and he
walked, up and down, and up and down, until I was weary of the sound of
his footstep. Then I heard him talking to himself and muttering, and
every time the bell rang out he came on the stairhead, with ‘What is
that, Mrs. Hudson?’ And now he has slammed off to his room, but I can
hear him walking away the same as ever. I hope he’s not going to be
ill, sir. I ventured to say something to him about cooling medicine,
but he turned on me, sir, with such a look that I don’t know how ever I
got out of the room.”
“I don’t think that you have any cause to be uneasy, Mrs. Hudson,” I
answered. “I have seen him like this before. He has some small matter
upon his mind which makes him restless.” I tried to speak lightly to
our worthy landlady, but I was myself somewhat uneasy when through the
long night I still from time to time heard the dull sound of his tread,
and knew how his keen spirit was chafing against this involuntary
inaction.
At breakfast-time he looked worn and haggard, with a little fleck of
feverish colour upon either cheek.
“You are knocking yourself up, old man,” I remarked. “I heard you
marching about in the night.”
“No, I could not sleep,” he answered. “This infernal problem is
consuming me. It is too much to be balked by so petty an obstacle, when
all else had been overcome. I know the men, the launch, everything; and
yet I can get no news. I have set other agencies at work, and used
every means at my disposal. The whole river has been searched on either
side, but there is no news, nor has Mrs. Smith heard of her husband. I
shall come to the conclusion soon that they have scuttled the craft.
But there are objections to that.”
“Or that Mrs. Smith has put us on a wrong scent.”
“No, I think that may be dismissed. I had inquiries made, and there is
a launch of that description.”
“Could it have gone up the river?”
“I have considered that possibility too, and there is a search-party
who will work up as far as Richmond. If no news comes to-day, I shall
start off myself to-morrow, and go for the men rather than the boat.
But surely, surely, we shall hear something.”
We did not, however. Not a word came to us either from Wiggins or from
the other agencies. There were articles in most of the papers upon the
Norwood tragedy. They all appeared to be rather hostile to the
unfortunate Thaddeus Sholto. No fresh details were to be found,
however, in any of them, save that an inquest was to be held upon the
following day. I walked over to Camberwell in the evening to report our
ill success to the ladies, and on my return I found Holmes dejected and
somewhat morose. He would hardly reply to my questions, and busied
himself all evening in an abstruse chemical analysis which involved
much heating of retorts and distilling of vapours, ending at last in a
smell which fairly drove me out of the apartment. Up to the small hours
of the morning I could hear the clinking of his test-tubes which told
me that he was still engaged in his malodorous experiment.
In the early dawn I woke with a start, and was surprised to find him
standing by my bedside, clad in a rude sailor dress with a pea-jacket,
and a coarse red scarf round his neck.
“I am off down the river, Watson,” said he. “I have been turning it
over in my mind, and I can see only one way out of it. It is worth
trying, at all events.”
“Surely I can come with you, then?” said I.
“No; you can be much more useful if you will remain here as my
representative. I am loath to go, for it is quite on the cards that
some message may come during the day, though Wiggins was despondent
about it last night. I want you to open all notes and telegrams, and to
act on your own judgment if any news should come. Can I rely upon you?”
“Most certainly.”
“I am afraid that you will not be able to wire to me, for I can hardly
tell yet where I may find myself. If I am in luck, however, I may not
be gone so very long. I shall have news of some sort or other before I
get back.”
I had heard nothing of him by breakfast-time. On opening the
_Standard_, however, I found that there was a fresh allusion to the
business. “With reference to the Upper Norwood tragedy,” it remarked,
“we have reason to believe that the matter promises to be even more
complex and mysterious than was originally supposed. Fresh evidence has
shown that it is quite impossible that Mr. Thaddeus Sholto could have
been in any way concerned in the matter. He and the housekeeper, Mrs.
Bernstone, were both released yesterday evening. It is believed,
however, that the police have a clue as to the real culprits, and that
it is being prosecuted by Mr. Athelney Jones, of Scotland Yard, with
all his well-known energy and sagacity. Further arrests may be expected
at any moment.”
“That is satisfactory so far as it goes,” thought I. “Friend Sholto is
safe, at any rate. I wonder what the fresh clue may be; though it seems
to be a stereotyped form whenever the police have made a blunder.”
I tossed the paper down upon the table, but at that moment my eye
caught an advertisement in the agony column. It ran in this way:
“Lost.—Whereas Mordecai Smith, boatman, and his son, Jim, left Smith’s
Wharf at or about three o’clock last Tuesday morning in the steam
launch _Aurora_, black with two red stripes, funnel black with a white
band, the sum of five pounds will be paid to any one who can give
information to Mrs. Smith, at Smith’s Wharf, or at 221_b_ Baker Street,
as to the whereabouts of the said Mordecai Smith and the launch
_Aurora_.”
This was clearly Holmes’s doing. The Baker Street address was enough to
prove that. It struck me as rather ingenious, because it might be read
by the fugitives without their seeing in it more than the natural
anxiety of a wife for her missing husband.
It was a long day. Every time that a knock came to the door, or a sharp
step passed in the street, I imagined that it was either Holmes
returning or an answer to his advertisement. I tried to read, but my
thoughts would wander off to our strange quest and to the ill-assorted
and villainous pair whom we were pursuing. Could there be, I wondered,
some radical flaw in my companion’s reasoning. Might he be suffering
from some huge self-deception? Was it not possible that his nimble and
speculative mind had built up this wild theory upon faulty premises? I
had never known him to be wrong; and yet the keenest reasoner may
occasionally be deceived. He was likely, I thought, to fall into error
through the over-refinement of his logic,—his preference for a subtle
and bizarre explanation when a plainer and more commonplace one lay