The Sign of the Four
which has taxed even his analytical genius. As it was, we very nearly
lost it at the last moment.”
“Pray sit down and tell me all about it, Dr. Watson,” said she.
I narrated briefly what had occurred since I had seen her
last,—Holmes’s new method of search, the discovery of the _Aurora_, the
appearance of Athelney Jones, our expedition in the evening, and the
wild chase down the Thames. She listened with parted lips and shining
eyes to my recital of our adventures. When I spoke of the dart which
had so narrowly missed us, she turned so white that I feared that she
was about to faint.
“It is nothing,” she said, as I hastened to pour her out some water. “I
am all right again. It was a shock to me to hear that I had placed my
friends in such horrible peril.”
“That is all over,” I answered. “It was nothing. I will tell you no
more gloomy details. Let us turn to something brighter. There is the
treasure. What could be brighter than that? I got leave to bring it
with me, thinking that it would interest you to be the first to see
it.”
“It would be of the greatest interest to me,” she said. There was no
eagerness in her voice, however. It had struck her, doubtless, that it
might seem ungracious upon her part to be indifferent to a prize which
had cost so much to win.
“What a pretty box!” she said, stooping over it. “This is Indian work,
I suppose?”
“Yes; it is Benares metal-work.”
“And so heavy!” she exclaimed, trying to raise it. “The box alone must
be of some value. Where is the key?”
“Small threw it into the Thames,” I answered. “I must borrow Mrs.
Forrester’s poker.” There was in the front a thick and broad hasp,
wrought in the image of a sitting Buddha. Under this I thrust the end
of the poker and twisted it outward as a lever. The hasp sprang open
with a loud snap. With trembling fingers I flung back the lid. We both
stood gazing in astonishment. The box was empty!
No wonder that it was heavy. The iron-work was two-thirds of an inch
thick all round. It was massive, well made, and solid, like a chest
constructed to carry things of great price, but not one shred or crumb
of metal or jewelry lay within it. It was absolutely and completely
empty.
“The treasure is lost,” said Miss Morstan, calmly.
As I listened to the words and realised what they meant, a great shadow
seemed to pass from my soul. I did not know how this Agra treasure had
weighed me down, until now that it was finally removed. It was selfish,
no doubt, disloyal, wrong, but I could realise nothing save that the
golden barrier was gone from between us. “Thank God!” I ejaculated from
my very heart.
She looked at me with a quick, questioning smile. “Why do you say
that?” she asked.
“Because you are within my reach again,” I said, taking her hand. She
did not withdraw it. “Because I love you, Mary, as truly as ever a man
loved a woman. Because this treasure, these riches, sealed my lips. Now
that they are gone I can tell you how I love you. That is why I said,
‘Thank God.’”
“Then I say, ‘Thank God,’ too,” she whispered, as I drew her to my
side. Whoever had lost a treasure, I knew that night that I had gained
one.
Chapter XII
The Strange Story of Jonathan Small
A very patient man was that inspector in the cab, for it was a weary
time before I rejoined him. His face clouded over when I showed him the
empty box.
“There goes the reward!” said he, gloomily. “Where there is no money
there is no pay. This night’s work would have been worth a tenner each
to Sam Brown and me if the treasure had been there.”
“Mr. Thaddeus Sholto is a rich man,” I said. “He will see that you are
rewarded, treasure or no.”
The inspector shook his head despondently, however. “It’s a bad job,”
he repeated; “and so Mr. Athelney Jones will think.”
His forecast proved to be correct, for the detective looked blank
enough when I got to Baker Street and showed him the empty box. They
had only just arrived, Holmes, the prisoner, and he, for they had
changed their plans so far as to report themselves at a station upon
the way. My companion lounged in his arm-chair with his usual listless
expression, while Small sat stolidly opposite to him with his wooden
leg cocked over his sound one. As I exhibited the empty box he leaned
back in his chair and laughed aloud.
“This is your doing, Small,” said Athelney Jones, angrily.
“Yes, I have put it away where you shall never lay hand upon it,” he
cried, exultantly. “It is my treasure; and if I can’t have the loot
I’ll take darned good care that no one else does. I tell you that no
living man has any right to it, unless it is three men who are in the
Andaman convict-barracks and myself. I know now that I cannot have the
use of it, and I know that they cannot. I have acted all through for
them as much as for myself. It’s been the sign of four with us always.
Well I know that they would have had me do just what I have done, and
throw the treasure into the Thames rather than let it go to kith or kin
of Sholto or of Morstan. It was not to make them rich that we did for
Achmet. You’ll find the treasure where the key is, and where little
Tonga is. When I saw that your launch must catch us, I put the loot
away in a safe place. There are no rupees for you this journey.”
“You are deceiving us, Small,” said Athelney Jones, sternly. “If you
had wished to throw the treasure into the Thames it would have been
easier for you to have thrown box and all.”
“Easier for me to throw, and easier for you to recover,” he answered,
with a shrewd, sidelong look. “The man that was clever enough to hunt
me down is clever enough to pick an iron box from the bottom of a
river. Now that they are scattered over five miles or so, it may be a
harder job. It went to my heart to do it, though. I was half mad when
you came up with us. However, there’s no good grieving over it. I’ve
had ups in my life, and I’ve had downs, but I’ve learned not to cry
over spilled milk.”
“This is a very serious matter, Small,” said the detective. “If you had
helped justice, instead of thwarting it in this way, you would have had
a better chance at your trial.”
“Justice!” snarled the ex-convict. “A pretty justice! Whose loot is
this, if it is not ours? Where is the justice that I should give it up
to those who have never earned it? Look how I have earned it! Twenty
long years in that fever-ridden swamp, all day at work under the
mangrove-tree, all night chained up in the filthy convict-huts, bitten
by mosquitoes, racked with ague, bullied by every cursed black-faced
policeman who loved to take it out of a white man. That was how I
earned the Agra treasure; and you talk to me of justice because I
cannot bear to feel that I have paid this price only that another may
enjoy it! I would rather swing a score of times, or have one of Tonga’s
darts in my hide, than live in a convict’s cell and feel that another
man is at his ease in a palace with the money that should be mine.”
Small had dropped his mask of stoicism, and all this came out in a wild
whirl of words, while his eyes blazed, and the handcuffs clanked
together with the impassioned movement of his hands. I could
understand, as I saw the fury and the passion of the man, that it was
no groundless or unnatural terror which had possessed Major Sholto when
he first learned that the injured convict was upon his track.
“You forget that we know nothing of all this,” said Holmes quietly. “We
have not heard your story, and we cannot tell how far justice may
originally have been on your side.”
“Well, sir, you have been very fair-spoken to me, though I can see that
I have you to thank that I have these bracelets upon my wrists. Still,
I bear no grudge for that. It is all fair and above-board. If you want
to hear my story I have no wish to hold it back. What I say to you is
God’s truth, every word of it. Thank you; you can put the glass beside
me here, and I’ll put my lips to it if I am dry.
“I am a Worcestershire man myself,—born near Pershore. I dare say you
would find a heap of Smalls living there now if you were to look. I
have often thought of taking a look round there, but the truth is that
I was never much of a credit to the family, and I doubt if they would
be so very glad to see me. They were all steady, chapel-going folk,
small farmers, well-known and respected over the country-side, while I
was always a bit of a rover. At last, however, when I was about
eighteen, I gave them no more trouble, for I got into a mess over a
girl, and could only get out of it again by taking the Queen’s shilling
and joining the 3rd Buffs, which was just starting for India.
“I wasn’t destined to do much soldiering, however. I had just got past
the goose-step, and learned to handle my musket, when I was fool enough
to go swimming in the Ganges. Luckily for me, my company sergeant, John
Holder, was in the water at the same time, and he was one of the finest
swimmers in the service. A crocodile took me, just as I was half-way
across, and nipped off my right leg as clean as a surgeon could have
done it, just above the knee. What with the shock and the loss of
blood, I fainted, and should have drowned if Holder had not caught hold
of me and paddled for the bank. I was five months in hospital over it,
and when at last I was able to limp out of it with this timber toe
strapped to my stump I found myself invalided out of the army and
unfitted for any active occupation.
“I was, as you can imagine, pretty down on my luck at this time, for I
was a useless cripple though not yet in my twentieth year. However, my
misfortune soon proved to be a blessing in disguise. A man named Abel
White, who had come out there as an indigo-planter, wanted an overseer
to look after his coolies and keep them up to their work. He happened
to be a friend of our colonel’s, who had taken an interest in me since
the accident. To make a long story short, the colonel recommended me
strongly for the post and, as the work was mostly to be done on
horseback, my leg was no great obstacle, for I had enough knee left to
keep good grip on the saddle. What I had to do was to ride over the
plantation, to keep an eye on the men as they worked, and to report the
idlers. The pay was fair, I had comfortable quarters, and altogether I
was content to spend the remainder of my life in indigo-planting. Mr.
Abel White was a kind man, and he would often drop into my little
shanty and smoke a pipe with me, for white folk out there feel their
hearts warm to each other as they never do here at home.
“Well, I was never in luck’s way long. Suddenly, without a note of
warning, the great mutiny broke upon us. One month India lay as still
and peaceful, to all appearance, as Surrey or Kent; the next there were
two hundred thousand black devils let loose, and the country was a
perfect hell. Of course you know all about it, gentlemen,—a deal more
than I do, very like, since reading is not in my line. I only know what
I saw with my own eyes. Our plantation was at a place called Muttra,
near the border of the Northwest Provinces. Night after night the whole
sky was alight with the burning bungalows, and day after day we had
small companies of Europeans passing through our estate with their
wives and children, on their way to Agra, where were the nearest
troops. Mr. Abel White was an obstinate man. He had it in his head that
the affair had been exaggerated, and that it would blow over as
suddenly as it had sprung up. There he sat on his veranda, drinking
whiskey-pegs and smoking cheroots, while the country was in a blaze
about him. Of course we stuck by him, I and Dawson, who, with his wife,
used to do the book-work and the managing. Well, one fine day the crash
came. I had been away on a distant plantation, and was riding slowly