The Sign of the Four
chanced, however, there was one of the convict-guard down there,—a vile
Pathan who had never missed a chance of insulting and injuring me. I
had always vowed vengeance, and now I had my chance. It was as if fate
had placed him in my way that I might pay my debt before I left the
island. He stood on the bank with his back to me, and his carbine on
his shoulder. I looked about for a stone to beat out his brains with,
but none could I see. Then a queer thought came into my head and showed
me where I could lay my hand on a weapon. I sat down in the darkness
and unstrapped my wooden leg. With three long hops I was on him. He put
his carbine to his shoulder, but I struck him full, and knocked the
whole front of his skull in. You can see the split in the wood now
where I hit him. We both went down together, for I could not keep my
balance, but when I got up I found him still lying quiet enough. I made
for the boat, and in an hour we were well out at sea. Tonga had brought
all his earthly possessions with him, his arms and his gods. Among
other things, he had a long bamboo spear, and some Andaman cocoa-nut
matting, with which I made a sort of sail. For ten days we were beating
about, trusting to luck, and on the eleventh we were picked up by a
trader which was going from Singapore to Jiddah with a cargo of Malay
pilgrims. They were a rum crowd, and Tonga and I soon managed to settle
down among them. They had one very good quality: they let you alone and
asked no questions.
“Well, if I were to tell you all the adventures that my little chum and
I went through, you would not thank me, for I would have you here until
the sun was shining. Here and there we drifted about the world,
something always turning up to keep us from London. All the time,
however, I never lost sight of my purpose. I would dream of Sholto at
night. A hundred times I have killed him in my sleep. At last, however,
some three or four years ago, we found ourselves in England. I had no
great difficulty in finding where Sholto lived, and I set to work to
discover whether he had realised the treasure, or if he still had it. I
made friends with someone who could help me,—I name no names, for I
don’t want to get any one else in a hole,—and I soon found that he
still had the jewels. Then I tried to get at him in many ways; but he
was pretty sly, and had always two prize-fighters, besides his sons and
his khitmutgar, on guard over him.
“One day, however, I got word that he was dying. I hurried at once to
the garden, mad that he should slip out of my clutches like that, and,
looking through the window, I saw him lying in his bed, with his sons
on each side of him. I’d have come through and taken my chance with the
three of them, only even as I looked at him his jaw dropped, and I knew
that he was gone. I got into his room that same night, though, and I
searched his papers to see if there was any record of where he had
hidden our jewels. There was not a line, however: so I came away,
bitter and savage as a man could be. Before I left I bethought me that
if I ever met my Sikh friends again it would be a satisfaction to know
that I had left some mark of our hatred; so I scrawled down the sign of
the four of us, as it had been on the chart, and I pinned it on his
bosom. It was too much that he should be taken to the grave without
some token from the men whom he had robbed and befooled.
“We earned a living at this time by my exhibiting poor Tonga at fairs
and other such places as the black cannibal. He would eat raw meat and
dance his war-dance: so we always had a hatful of pennies after a day’s
work. I still heard all the news from Pondicherry Lodge, and for some
years there was no news to hear, except that they were hunting for the
treasure. At last, however, came what we had waited for so long. The
treasure had been found. It was up at the top of the house, in Mr.
Bartholomew Sholto’s chemical laboratory. I came at once and had a look
at the place, but I could not see how with my wooden leg I was to make
my way up to it. I learned, however, about a trap-door in the roof, and
also about Mr. Sholto’s supper-hour. It seemed to me that I could
manage the thing easily through Tonga. I brought him out with me with a
long rope wound round his waist. He could climb like a cat, and he soon
made his way through the roof, but, as ill luck would have it,
Bartholomew Sholto was still in the room, to his cost. Tonga thought he
had done something very clever in killing him, for when I came up by
the rope I found him strutting about as proud as a peacock. Very much
surprised was he when I made at him with the rope’s end and cursed him
for a little blood-thirsty imp. I took the treasure-box and let it
down, and then slid down myself, having first left the sign of the four
upon the table, to show that the jewels had come back at last to those
who had most right to them. Tonga then pulled up the rope, closed the
window, and made off the way that he had come.
“I don’t know that I have anything else to tell you. I had heard a
waterman speak of the speed of Smith’s launch the _Aurora_, so I
thought she would be a handy craft for our escape. I engaged with old
Smith, and was to give him a big sum if he got us safe to our ship. He
knew, no doubt, that there was some screw loose, but he was not in our
secrets. All this is the truth, and if I tell it to you, gentlemen, it
is not to amuse you,—for you have not done me a very good turn,—but it
is because I believe the best defence I can make is just to hold back
nothing, but let all the world know how badly I have myself been served
by Major Sholto, and how innocent I am of the death of his son.”
“A very remarkable account,” said Sherlock Holmes. “A fitting wind-up
to an extremely interesting case. There is nothing at all new to me in
the latter part of your narrative, except that you brought your own
rope. That I did not know. By the way, I had hoped that Tonga had lost
all his darts; yet he managed to shoot one at us in the boat.”
“He had lost them all, sir, except the one which was in his blow-pipe
at the time.”
“Ah, of course,” said Holmes. “I had not thought of that.”
“Is there any other point which you would like to ask about?” asked the
convict, affably.
“I think not, thank you,” my companion answered.
“Well, Holmes,” said Athelney Jones, “You are a man to be humoured, and
we all know that you are a connoisseur of crime, but duty is duty, and
I have gone rather far in doing what you and your friend asked me. I
shall feel more at ease when we have our story-teller here safe under
lock and key. The cab still waits, and there are two inspectors
downstairs. I am much obliged to you both for your assistance. Of
course you will be wanted at the trial. Good-night to you.”
“Good-night, gentlemen both,” said Jonathan Small.
“You first, Small,” remarked the wary Jones as they left the room.
“I’ll take particular care that you don’t club me with your wooden leg,
whatever you may have done to the gentleman at the Andaman Isles.”
“Well, and there is the end of our little drama,” I remarked, after we
had set some time smoking in silence. “I fear that it may be the last
investigation in which I shall have the chance of studying your
methods. Miss Morstan has done me the honour to accept me as a husband
in prospective.”
He gave a most dismal groan. “I feared as much,” said he. “I really
cannot congratulate you.”
I was a little hurt. “Have you any reason to be dissatisfied with my
choice?” I asked.
“Not at all. I think she is one of the most charming young ladies I
ever met, and might have been most useful in such work as we have been
doing. She had a decided genius that way: witness the way in which she
preserved that Agra plan from all the other papers of her father. But
love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to
that true cold reason which I place above all things. I should never
marry myself, lest I bias my judgment.”
“I trust,” said I, laughing, “that my judgment may survive the ordeal.
But you look weary.”
“Yes, the reaction is already upon me. I shall be as limp as a rag for
a week.”
“Strange,” said I, “how terms of what in another man I should call
laziness alternate with your fits of splendid energy and vigour.”
“Yes,” he answered, “there are in me the makings of a very fine loafer
and also of a pretty spry sort of fellow. I often think of those lines
of old Goethe,—
Schade dass die Natur nur _einen_ Mensch aus Dir schuf,
Denn zum würdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff.
“By the way, _à propos_ of this Norwood business, you see that they
had, as I surmised, a confederate in the house, who could be none other
than Lal Rao, the butler: so Jones actually has the undivided honour of
having caught one fish in his great haul.”
“The division seems rather unfair,” I remarked. “You have done all the
work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit,
pray what remains for you?”
“For me,” said Sherlock Holmes, “there still remains the
cocaine-bottle.” And he stretched his long white hand up for it.