Chapter 2

They watched them
continuously, and this morning they saw me arrive.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I recognized their sentinel when I glanced out of my
window. He is a harmless enough fellow, Parker by name, a
garroter by trade, and a remarkable performer upon the
jew’s-harp. I cared nothing for him. But I cared a great deal for
the much more formidable person who was behind him, the bosom
friend of Moriarty, the man who dropped the rocks over the cliff,
the most cunning and dangerous criminal in London. That is the
man who is after me to-night Watson, and that is the man who is
quite unaware that we are after _him_.”

My friend’s plans were gradually revealing themselves. From this
convenient retreat, the watchers were being watched and the
trackers tracked. That angular shadow up yonder was the bait, and
we were the hunters. In silence we stood together in the darkness
and watched the hurrying figures who passed and repassed in front
of us. Holmes was silent and motionless; but I could tell that he
was keenly alert, and that his eyes were fixed intently upon the
stream of passers-by. It was a bleak and boisterous night and the
wind whistled shrilly down the long street. Many people were
moving to and fro, most of them muffled in their coats and
cravats. Once or twice it seemed to me that I had seen the same
figure before, and I especially noticed two men who appeared to
be sheltering themselves from the wind in the doorway of a house
some distance up the street. I tried to draw my companion’s
attention to them; but he gave a little ejaculation of
impatience, and continued to stare into the street. More than
once he fidgeted with his feet and tapped rapidly with his
fingers upon the wall. It was evident to me that he was becoming
uneasy, and that his plans were not working out altogether as he
had hoped. At last, as midnight approached and the street
gradually cleared, he paced up and down the room in
uncontrollable agitation. I was about to make some remark to him,
when I raised my eyes to the lighted window, and again
experienced almost as great a surprise as before. I clutched
Holmes’s arm, and pointed upward.

“The shadow has moved!” I cried.

It was indeed no longer the profile, but the back, which was
turned towards us.

Three years had certainly not smoothed the asperities of his
temper or his impatience with a less active intelligence than his
own.

“Of course it has moved,” said he. “Am I such a farcical bungler,
Watson, that I should erect an obvious dummy, and expect that
some of the sharpest men in Europe would be deceived by it? We
have been in this room two hours, and Mrs. Hudson has made some
change in that figure eight times, or once in every quarter of an
hour. She works it from the front, so that her shadow may never
be seen. Ah!” He drew in his breath with a shrill, excited
intake. In the dim light I saw his head thrown forward, his whole
attitude rigid with attention. Outside the street was absolutely
deserted. Those two men might still be crouching in the doorway,
but I could no longer see them. All was still and dark, save only
that brilliant yellow screen in front of us with the black figure
outlined upon its centre. Again in the utter silence I heard that
thin, sibilant note which spoke of intense suppressed excitement.
An instant later he pulled me back into the blackest corner of
the room, and I felt his warning hand upon my lips. The fingers
which clutched me were quivering. Never had I known my friend
more moved, and yet the dark street still stretched lonely and
motionless before us.

But suddenly I was aware of that which his keener senses had
already distinguished. A low, stealthy sound came to my ears, not
from the direction of Baker Street, but from the back of the very
house in which we lay concealed. A door opened and shut. An
instant later steps crept down the passage—steps which were meant
to be silent, but which reverberated harshly through the empty
house. Holmes crouched back against the wall, and I did the same,
my hand closing upon the handle of my revolver. Peering through
the gloom, I saw the vague outline of a man, a shade blacker than
the blackness of the open door. He stood for an instant, and then
he crept forward, crouching, menacing, into the room. He was
within three yards of us, this sinister figure, and I had braced
myself to meet his spring, before I realized that he had no idea
of our presence. He passed close beside us, stole over to the
window, and very softly and noiselessly raised it for half a
foot. As he sank to the level of this opening, the light of the
street, no longer dimmed by the dusty glass, fell full upon his
face. The man seemed to be beside himself with excitement. His
two eyes shone like stars, and his features were working
convulsively. He was an elderly man, with a thin, projecting
nose, a high, bald forehead, and a huge grizzled moustache. An
opera hat was pushed to the back of his head, and an evening
dress shirt-front gleamed out through his open overcoat. His face
was gaunt and swarthy, scored with deep, savage lines. In his
hand he carried what appeared to be a stick, but as he laid it
down upon the floor it gave a metallic clang. Then from the
pocket of his overcoat he drew a bulky object, and he busied
himself in some task which ended with a loud, sharp click, as if
a spring or bolt had fallen into its place. Still kneeling upon
the floor he bent forward and threw all his weight and strength
upon some lever, with the result that there came a long,
whirling, grinding noise, ending once more in a powerful click.
He straightened himself then, and I saw that what he held in his
hand was a sort of gun, with a curiously misshapen butt. He
opened it at the breech, put something in, and snapped the
breech-lock. Then, crouching down, he rested the end of the
barrel upon the ledge of the open window, and I saw his long
moustache droop over the stock and his eye gleam as it peered
along the sights. I heard a little sigh of satisfaction as he
cuddled the butt into his shoulder; and saw that amazing target,
the black man on the yellow ground, standing clear at the end of
his foresight. For an instant he was rigid and motionless. Then
his finger tightened on the trigger. There was a strange, loud
whiz and a long, silvery tinkle of broken glass. At that instant
Holmes sprang like a tiger on to the marksman’s back, and hurled
him flat upon his face. He was up again in a moment, and with
convulsive strength he seized Holmes by the throat, but I struck
him on the head with the butt of my revolver, and he dropped
again upon the floor. I fell upon him, and as I held him my
comrade blew a shrill call upon a whistle. There was the clatter
of running feet upon the pavement, and two policemen in uniform,
with one plain-clothes detective, rushed through the front
entrance and into the room.

“That you, Lestrade?” said Holmes.

“Yes, Mr. Holmes. I took the job myself. It’s good to see you
back in London, sir.”

“I think you want a little unofficial help. Three undetected
murders in one year won’t do, Lestrade. But you handled the
Molesey Mystery with less than your usual—that’s to say, you
handled it fairly well.”

We had all risen to our feet, our prisoner breathing hard, with a
stalwart constable on each side of him. Already a few loiterers
had begun to collect in the street. Holmes stepped up to the
window, closed it, and dropped the blinds. Lestrade had produced
two candles, and the policemen had uncovered their lanterns. I
was able at last to have a good look at our prisoner.

It was a tremendously virile and yet sinister face which was
turned towards us. With the brow of a philosopher above and the
jaw of a sensualist below, the man must have started with great
capacities for good or for evil. But one could not look upon his
cruel blue eyes, with their drooping, cynical lids, or upon the
fierce, aggressive nose and the threatening, deep-lined brow,
without reading Nature’s plainest danger-signals. He took no heed
of any of us, but his eyes were fixed upon Holmes’s face with an
expression in which hatred and amazement were equally blended.
“You fiend!” he kept on muttering. “You clever, clever fiend!”

“Ah, Colonel!” said Holmes, arranging his rumpled collar.
“‘Journeys end in lovers’ meetings,’ as the old play says. I
don’t think I have had the pleasure of seeing you since you
favoured me with those attentions as I lay on the ledge above the
Reichenbach Fall.”

The colonel still stared at my friend like a man in a trance.
“You cunning, cunning fiend!” was all that he could say.

“I have not introduced you yet,” said Holmes. “This, gentlemen,
is Colonel Sebastian Moran, once of Her Majesty’s Indian Army,
and the best heavy-game shot that our Eastern Empire has ever
produced. I believe I am correct Colonel, in saying that your bag
of tigers still remains unrivalled?”

The fierce old man said nothing, but still glared at my
companion. With his savage eyes and bristling moustache he was
wonderfully like a tiger himself.

“I wonder that my very simple stratagem could deceive so old a
_shikari_,” said Holmes. “It must be very familiar to you. Have
you not tethered a young kid under a tree, lain above it with
your rifle, and waited for the bait to bring up your tiger? This
empty house is my tree, and you are my tiger. You have possibly
had other guns in reserve in case there should be several tigers,
or in the unlikely supposition of your own aim failing you.
These,” he pointed around, “are my other guns. The parallel is
exact.”

Colonel Moran sprang forward with a snarl of rage, but the
constables dragged him back. The fury upon his face was terrible
to look at.

“I confess that you had one small surprise for me,” said Holmes.
“I did not anticipate that you would yourself make use of this
empty house and this convenient front window. I had imagined you
as operating from the street, where my friend, Lestrade and his
merry men were awaiting you. With that exception, all has gone as
I expected.”

Colonel Moran turned to the official detective.

“You may or may not have just cause for arresting me,” said he,
“but at least there can be no reason why I should submit to the
gibes of this person. If I am in the hands of the law, let things
be done in a legal way.”

“Well, that’s reasonable enough,” said Lestrade. “Nothing further
you have to say, Mr. Holmes, before we go?”

Holmes had picked up the powerful air-gun from the floor, and was
examining its mechanism.

“An admirable and unique weapon,” said he, “noiseless and of
tremendous power: I knew Von Herder, the blind German mechanic,
who constructed it to the order of the late Professor Moriarty.
For years I have been aware of its existence though I have never
before had the opportunity of handling it. I commend it very
specially to your attention, Lestrade and also the bullets which
fit it.”

“You can trust us to look after that, Mr. Holmes,” said Lestrade,
as the whole party moved towards the door. “Anything further to
say?”

“Only to ask what charge you intend to prefer?”

“What charge, sir? Why, of course, the attempted murder of Mr.
Sherlock Holmes.”

“Not so, Lestrade. I do not propose to appear in the matter at
all. To you, and to you only, belongs the credit of the
remarkable arrest which you have effected. Yes, Lestrade, I
congratulate you! With your usual happy mixture of cunning and
audacity, you have got him.”

“Got him! Got whom, Mr. Holmes?”

“The man that the whole force has been seeking in vain—Colonel
Sebastian Moran, who shot the Honourable Ronald Adair with an
expanding bullet from an air-gun through the open window of the
second-floor front of No. 427, Park Lane, upon the thirtieth of
last month. That’s the charge, Lestrade. And now, Watson, if you
can endure the draught from a broken window, I think that half an
hour in my study over a cigar may afford you some profitable
amusement.”

Our old chambers had been left unchanged through the supervision
of Mycroft Holmes and the immediate care of Mrs. Hudson. As I
entered I saw, it is true, an unwonted tidiness, but the old
landmarks were all in their place. There were the chemical corner
and the acid-stained, deal-topped table. There upon a shelf was
the row of formidable scrap-books and books of reference which
many of our fellow-citizens would have been so glad to burn. The
diagrams, the violin-case, and the pipe-rack—even the Persian
slipper which contained the tobacco—all met my eyes as I glanced
round me. There were two occupants of the room—one, Mrs. Hudson,
who beamed upon us both as we entered—the other, the strange
dummy which had played so important a part in the evening’s
adventures. It was a wax-coloured model of my friend, so
admirably done that it was a perfect facsimile. It stood on a
small pedestal table with an old dressing-gown of Holmes’s so
draped round it that the illusion from the street was absolutely
perfect.

“I hope you observed all precautions, Mrs. Hudson?” said Holmes.

“I went to it on my knees, sir, just as you told me.”

“Excellent. You carried the thing out very well. Did you observe
where the bullet went?”

“Yes, sir. I’m afraid it has spoilt your beautiful bust, for it
passed right through the head and flattened itself on the wall. I
picked it up from the carpet. Here it is!”

Holmes held it out to me. “A soft revolver bullet, as you
perceive, Watson. There’s genius in that, for who would expect to
find such a thing fired from an airgun? All right, Mrs. Hudson. I
am much obliged for your assistance. And now, Watson, let me see
you in your old seat once more, for there are several points
which I should like to discuss with you.”

He had thrown off the seedy frockcoat, and now he was the Holmes
of old in the mouse-coloured dressing-gown which he took from his
effigy.

“The old _shikari’s_ nerves have not lost their steadiness, nor
his eyes their keenness,” said he, with a laugh, as he inspected
the shattered forehead of his bust.

“Plumb in the middle of the back of the head and smack through
the brain. He was the best shot in India, and I expect that there
are few better in London. Have you heard the name?”

“No, I have not.”

“Well, well, such is fame! But, then, if I remember right, you
had not heard the name of Professor James Moriarty, who had one
of the great brains of the century. Just give me down my index of
biographies from the shelf.”

He turned over the pages lazily, leaning back in his chair and
blowing great clouds from his cigar.

“My collection of M’s is a fine one,” said he. “Moriarty himself
is enough to make any letter illustrious, and here is Morgan the
poisoner, and Merridew of abominable memory, and Mathews, who
knocked out my left canine in the waiting-room at Charing Cross,
and, finally, here is our friend of to-night.”

He handed over the book, and I read:

_Moran_, _Sebastian_, _Colonel_. Unemployed. Formerly 1st
Bangalore Pioneers. Born London, 1840. Son of Sir Augustus Moran,
C.B., once British Minister to Persia. Educated Eton and Oxford.
Served in Jowaki Campaign, Afghan Campaign, Charasiab
(despatches), Sherpur, and Cabul. Author of _Heavy Game of the
Western Himalayas_ (1881); _Three Months in the Jungle_ (1884).
Address: Conduit Street. Clubs: The Anglo-Indian, the
Tankerville, the Bagatelle Card Club.

On the margin was written, in Holmes’s precise hand:

The second most dangerous man in London.

“This is astonishing,” said I, as I handed back the volume. “The
man’s career is that of an honourable soldier.”

“It is true,” Holmes answered. “Up to a certain point he did
well. He was always a man of iron nerve, and the story is still
told in India how he crawled down a drain after a wounded
man-eating tiger. There are some trees, Watson, which grow to a
certain height, and then suddenly develop some unsightly
eccentricity. You will see it often in humans. I have a theory
that the individual represents in his development the whole
procession of his ancestors, and that such a sudden turn to good
or evil stands for some strong influence which came into the line
of his pedigree. The person becomes, as it were, the epitome of
the history of his own family.”

“It is surely rather fanciful.”

“Well, I don’t insist upon it. Whatever the cause, Colonel Moran
began to go wrong. Without any open scandal, he still made India
too hot to hold him. He retired, came to London, and again
acquired an evil name. It was at this time that he was sought out
by Professor Moriarty, to whom for a time he was chief of the
staff. Moriarty supplied him liberally with money, and used him
only in one or two very high-class jobs, which no ordinary
criminal could have undertaken. You may have some recollection of
the death of Mrs. Stewart, of Lauder, in 1887. Not? Well, I am
sure Moran was at the bottom of it, but nothing could be proved.
So cleverly was the colonel concealed that, even when the
Moriarty gang was broken up, we could not incriminate him. You
remember at that date, when I called upon you in your rooms, how
I put up the shutters for fear of air-guns? No doubt you thought
me fanciful. I knew exactly what I was doing, for I knew of the
existence of this remarkable gun, and I knew also that one of the
best shots in the world would be behind it. When we were in
Switzerland he followed us with Moriarty, and it was undoubtedly
he who gave me that evil five minutes on the Reichenbach ledge.

“You may think that I read the papers with some attention during
my sojourn in France, on the look-out for any chance of laying
him by the heels. So long as he was free in London, my life would
really not have been worth living. Night and day the shadow would
have been over me, and sooner or later his chance must have come.
What could I do? I could not shoot him at sight, or I should
myself be in the dock. There was no use appealing to a
magistrate. They cannot interfere on the strength of what would
appear to them to be a wild suspicion. So I could do nothing. But
I watched the criminal news, knowing that sooner or later I
should get him. Then came the death of this Ronald Adair. My
chance had come at last. Knowing what I did, was it not certain
that Colonel Moran had done it? He had played cards with the lad,
he had followed him home from the club, he had shot him through
the open window. There was not a doubt of it. The bullets alone
are enough to put his head in a noose. I came over at once. I was
seen by the sentinel, who would, I knew, direct the colonel’s
attention to my presence. He could not fail to connect my sudden
return with his crime, and to be terribly alarmed. I was sure
that he would make an attempt to get me out of the way _at once_,
and would bring round his murderous weapon for that purpose. I
left him an excellent mark in the window, and, having warned the
police that they might be needed—by the way, Watson, you spotted
their presence in that doorway with unerring accuracy—I took up
what seemed to me to be a judicious post for observation, never
dreaming that he would choose the same spot for his attack. Now,
my dear Watson, does anything remain for me to explain?”

“Yes,” said I. “You have not made it clear what was Colonel
Moran’s motive in murdering the Honourable Ronald Adair?”

“Ah! my dear Watson, there we come into those realms of
conjecture, where the most logical mind may be at fault. Each may
form his own hypothesis upon the present evidence, and yours is
as likely to be correct as mine.”

“You have formed one, then?”

“I think that it is not difficult to explain the facts. It came
out in evidence that Colonel Moran and young Adair had, between
them, won a considerable amount of money. Now, Moran undoubtedly
played foul—of that I have long been aware. I believe that on the
day of the murder Adair had discovered that Moran was cheating.
Very likely he had spoken to him privately, and had threatened to
expose him unless he voluntarily resigned his membership of the
club, and promised not to play cards again. It is unlikely that a
youngster like Adair would at once make a hideous scandal by
exposing a well-known man so much older than himself. Probably he
acted as I suggest. The exclusion from his clubs would mean ruin
to Moran, who lived by his ill-gotten card-gains. He therefore
murdered Adair, who at the time was endeavouring to work out how
much money he should himself return, since he could not profit by
his partner’s foul play. He locked the door lest the ladies
should surprise him and insist upon knowing what he was doing
with these names and coins. Will it pass?”

“I have no doubt that you have hit upon the truth.”

“It will be verified or disproved at the trial. Meanwhile, come
what may, Colonel Moran will trouble us no more. The famous
air-gun of Von Herder will embellish the Scotland Yard Museum,
and once again Mr. Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to
examining those interesting little problems which the complex
life of London so plentifully presents.”

THE ADVENTURE OF THE NORWOOD BUILDER

“From the point of view of the criminal expert,” said Mr.
Sherlock Holmes, “London has become a singularly uninteresting
city since the death of the late lamented Professor Moriarty.”

“I can hardly think that you would find many decent citizens to
agree with you,” I answered.

“Well, well, I must not be selfish,” said he, with a smile, as he
pushed back his chair from the breakfast-table. “The community is
certainly the gainer, and no one the loser, save the poor
out-of-work specialist, whose occupation has gone. With that man
in the field, one’s morning paper presented infinite
possibilities. Often it was only the smallest trace, Watson, the
faintest indication, and yet it was enough to tell me that the
great malignant brain was there, as the gentlest tremors of the
edges of the web remind one of the foul spider which lurks in the
centre. Petty thefts, wanton assaults, purposeless outrage—to the
man who held the clue all could be worked into one connected
whole. To the scientific student of the higher criminal world, no
capital in Europe offered the advantages which London then
possessed. But now——” He shrugged his shoulders in humorous
deprecation of the state of things which he had himself done so
much to produce.

At the time of which I speak, Holmes had been back for some
months, and I at his request had sold my practice and returned to
share the old quarters in Baker Street. A young doctor, named
Verner, had purchased my small Kensington practice, and given
with astonishingly little demur the highest price that I ventured
to ask—an incident which only explained itself some years later,
when I found that Verner was a distant relation of Holmes, and
that it was my friend who had really found the money.

Our months of partnership had not been so uneventful as he had
stated, for I find, on looking over my notes, that this period
includes the case of the papers of ex-President Murillo, and also
the shocking affair of the Dutch steamship _Friesland_, which so
nearly cost us both our lives. His cold and proud nature was
always averse, however, from anything in the shape of public
applause, and he bound me in the most stringent terms to say no
further word of himself, his methods, or his successes—a
prohibition which, as I have explained, has only now been
removed.

Mr. Sherlock Holmes was leaning back in his chair after his
whimsical protest, and was unfolding his morning paper in a
leisurely fashion, when our attention was arrested by a
tremendous ring at the bell, followed immediately by a hollow
drumming sound, as if someone were beating on the outer door with
his fist. As it opened there came a tumultuous rush into the
hall, rapid feet clattered up the stair, and an instant later a
wild-eyed and frantic young man, pale, disheveled, and
palpitating, burst into the room. He looked from one to the other
of us, and under our gaze of inquiry he became conscious that
some apology was needed for this unceremonious entry.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Holmes,” he cried. “You mustn’t blame me. I am
nearly mad. Mr. Holmes, I am the unhappy John Hector McFarlane.”

He made the announcement as if the name alone would explain both
his visit and its manner, but I could see, by my companion’s
unresponsive face, that it meant no more to him than to me.

“Have a cigarette, Mr. McFarlane,” said he, pushing his case
across. “I am sure that, with your symptoms, my friend Dr. Watson
here would prescribe a sedative. The weather has been so very
warm these last few days. Now, if you feel a little more
composed, I should be glad if you would sit down in that chair,
and tell us very slowly and quietly who you are, and what it is
that you want. You mentioned your name, as if I should recognize
it, but I assure you that, beyond the obvious facts that you are
a bachelor, a solicitor, a Freemason, and an asthmatic, I know
nothing whatever about you.”

Familiar as I was with my friend’s methods, it was not difficult
for me to follow his deductions, and to observe the untidiness of
attire, the sheaf of legal papers, the watch-charm, and the
breathing which had prompted them. Our client, however, stared in
amazement.

“Yes, I am all that, Mr. Holmes; and, in addition, I am the most
unfortunate man at this moment in London. For heaven’s sake,
don’t abandon me, Mr. Holmes! If they come to arrest me before I
have finished my story, make them give me time, so that I may
tell you the whole truth. I could go to jail happy if I knew that
you were working for me outside.”

“Arrest you!” said Holmes. “This is really most grati—most
interesting. On what charge do you expect to be arrested?”

“Upon the charge of murdering Mr. Jonas Oldacre, of Lower
Norwood.”

My companion’s expressive face showed a sympathy which was not, I
am afraid, entirely unmixed with satisfaction.

“Dear me,” said he, “it was only this moment at breakfast that I
was saying to my friend, Dr. Watson, that sensational cases had
disappeared out of our papers.”

Our visitor stretched forward a quivering hand and picked up the
_Daily Telegraph_, which still lay upon Holmes’s knee.

“If you had looked at it, sir, you would have seen at a glance
what the errand is on which I have come to you this morning. I
feel as if my name and my misfortune must be in every man’s
mouth.” He turned it over to expose the central page. “Here it
is, and with your permission I will read it to you. Listen to
this, Mr. Holmes. The headlines are: ‘Mysterious Affair at Lower
Norwood. Disappearance of a Well-known Builder. Suspicion of
Murder and Arson. A Clue to the Criminal.’ That is the clue which
they are already following, Mr. Holmes, and I know that it leads
infallibly to me. I have been followed from London Bridge
Station, and I am sure that they are only waiting for the warrant
to arrest me. It will break my mother’s heart—it will break her
heart!” He wrung his hands in an agony of apprehension, and
swayed backward and forward in his chair.

I looked with interest upon this man, who was accused of being
the perpetrator of a crime of violence. He was flaxen-haired and
handsome, in a washed-out negative fashion, with frightened blue
eyes, and a clean-shaven face, with a weak, sensitive mouth. His
age may have been about twenty-seven, his dress and bearing that
of a gentleman. From the pocket of his light summer overcoat
protruded the bundle of indorsed papers which proclaimed his
profession.

“We must use what time we have,” said Holmes. “Watson, would you
have the kindness to take the paper and to read the paragraph in
question?”

Underneath the vigorous headlines which our client had quoted, I
read the following suggestive narrative:

“Late last night, or early this morning, an incident occurred at
Lower Norwood which points, it is feared, to a serious crime.