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                     SHERLOCK HOLMES:  A STUDY IN SCARLET

                           Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

                         A STUDY IN SCARLET -- Part 1
                        Chapter 1:  Mr. Sherlock Holmes

      In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the
      University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the
      course prescribed for surgeons in the Army.  Having completed my
      studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland
      Fusiliers as assistant surgeon.  The regiment was stationed in
      India at the time, and before I could join it, the second Afghan
      war had broken out.  On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps
      had advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the
      enemy's country.  I followed, however, with many other officers
      who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded in
      reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment, and at
      once entered upon my new duties.

          The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me
      it had nothing but misfortune and disaster.  I was removed from my
      brigade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the
      fatal battle of Maiwand.  There I was struck on the shoulder by a
      Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian
      artery.  I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous
      Ghazis had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by
      Murray, my orderly, who threw me across a pack-horse, and
      succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines.

          Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which I
      had undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded
      sufferers, to the base hospital at Peshawar.  Here I rallied, and
      had already improved so far as to be able to walk about the wards,
      and even to bask a little upon the veranda, when I was struck down
      by enteric fever, that curse of our Indian possessions.  For
      months my life was despaired of, and when at last I came to myself
      and became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a
      medical board determined that not a day should be lost in sending
      me back to England.  I was despatched, accordingly, in the
      troopship Orontes, and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty,
      with my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a
      paternal government to spend the next nine months in attempting to
      improve it.

          I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as
      free as air -- or as free as an income of eleven shillings and
      sixpence a day will permit a man to be.  Under such circumstances
      I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which
      all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly
      drained.  There I stayed for some time at a private hotel in the
      Strand, leading a comfortless, meaningless existence, and spending
      such money as I had, considerably more freely than I ought.  So
      alarming did the state of my finances become, that I soon realized
      that I must either leave the metropolis and rusticate somewhere in
      the country, or that I must make a complete alteration in my style
      of living.  Choosing the latter alternative, I began by making up
      my mind to leave the hotel, and take up my quarters in some less
      pretentious and less expensive domicile.

          On the very day that I had come to this conclusion, I was
      standing at the Criterion Bar, when someone tapped me on the
      shoulder, and turning round I recognized young Stamford, who had
      been a dresser under me at Bart's.  The sight of a friendly face
      in the great wilderness of London is a pleasant thing indeed to a
      lonely man.  In old days Stamford had never been a particular
      crony of mine, but now I hailed him with enthusiasm, and he, in
      his turn, appeared to be delighted to see me.  In the exuberance
      of my joy, I asked him to lunch with me at the Holborn, and we
      started off together in a hansom.

          "Whatever have you been doing with yourself, Watson?" he asked
      in undisguised wonder, as we rattled through the crowded London
      streets.  "You are as thin as a lath and as brown as a nut."

          I gave him a short sketch of my adventures, and had hardly
      concluded it by the time that we reached our destination.

          "Poor devil!" he said, commiseratingly, after he had listened
      to my misfortunes.  "What are you up to now?"

          "Looking for lodgings," I answered.  "Trying to solve the
      problem as to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a
      reasonable price."

          "That's a strange thing," remarked my companion; "you are the
      second man today that has used that expression to me."

          "And who was the first?" I asked.

          "A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the
      hospital.  He was bemoaning himself this morning because he could
      not get someone to go halves with him in some nice rooms which he
      had found, and which were too much for his purse."

          "By Jove!" I cried; "if he really wants someone to share the
      rooms and the expense, I am the very man for him.  I should prefer
      having a partner to being alone."

          Young Stamford looked rather strangely at me over his
      wineglass.  "You don't know Sherlock Holmes yet," he said;
      "perhaps you would not care for him as a constant companion."

          "Why, what is there against him?"

          "Oh, I didn't say there was anything against him.  He is a
      little queer in his ideas -- an enthusiast in some branches of
      science.  As far as I know he is a decent fellow enough."

          "A medical student, I suppose?" said I.

          "No -- I have no idea what he intends to go in for.  I believe
      he is well up in anatomy, and he is a first-class chemist; but, as
      far as I know, he has never taken out any systematic medical
      classes.  His studies are very desultory and eccentric, but he has
      amassed a lot of out-of-the-way knowledge which would astonish his
      professors."

          "Did you never ask him what he was going in for?" I asked.

          "No; he is not a man that it is easy to draw out, though he
      can be communicative enough when the fancy seizes him."

          "I should like to meet him," I said.  "If I am to lodge with
      anyone, I should prefer a man of studious and quiet habits.  I am
      not strong enough yet to stand much noise or excitement.  I had
      enough of both in Afghanistan to last me for the remainder of my
      natural existence.  How could I meet this friend of yours?"

          "He is sure to be at the laboratory," returned my companion.
      "He either avoids the place for weeks, or else he works there from
      morning till night.  If you like, we will drive round together
      after luncheon."

          "Certainly," I answered, and the conversation drifted away
      into other channels.  As we made our way to the hospital after
      leaving the Holborn, Stamford gave me a few more particulars about
      the gentleman whom I proposed to take as a fellow-lodger.

          "You mustn't blame me if you don't get on with him," he said;
      "I know nothing more of him than I have learned from meeting him
      occasionally in the laboratory.  You proposed this arrangement, so
      you must not hold me responsible."

          "If we don't get on it will be easy to part company," I
      answered.  "It seems to me, Stamford," I added, looking hard at my
      companion, "that you have some reason for washing your hands of
      the matter.  Is this fellow's temper so formidable, or what is it?
      Don't be mealymouthed about it."

          "It is not easy to express the inexpressible," he answered
      with a laugh.  "Holmes is a little too scientific for my
      tastes -- it approaches to cold-bloodedness.  I could imagine his
      giving a friend a little pinch of the latest vegetable alkaloid,
      not out of malevolence, you understand, but simply out of a spirit
      of inquiry in order to have an accurate idea of the effects.  To
      do him justice, I think that he would take it himself with the
      same readiness.  He appears to have a passion for definite and
      exact knowledge."

          "Very right too."

          "Yes, but it may be pushed to excess.  When it comes to
      beating the subjects in the dissecting-rooms with a stick, it is
      certainly taking rather a bizarre shape."

          "Beating the subjects!"

          "Yes, to verify how far bruises may be produced after death.
      I saw him at it with my own eyes."

          "And yet you say he is not a medical student?"

          "No.  Heaven knows what the objects of his studies are.  But
      here we are, and you must form your own impressions about him."
      As he spoke, we turned down a narrow lane and passed through a
      small side-door, which opened into a wing of the great hospital.
      It was familiar ground to me, and I needed no guiding as we
      ascended the bleak stone staircase and made our way down the long
      corridor with its vista of whitewashed wall and dun-coloured
      doors.  Near the farther end a low arched passage branched away
      from it and led to the chemical laboratory.

          This was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with countless
      bottles.  Broad, low tables were scattered about, which bristled
      with retorts, test-tubes, and little Bunsen lamps, with their blue
      flickering flames.  There was only one student in the room, who
      was bending over a distant table absorbed in his work.  At the
      sound of our steps he glanced round and sprang to his feet with a
      cry of pleasure.  "I've found it!  I've found it," he shouted to my
      companion, running towards us with a test-tube in his hand.  "I
      have found a re-agent which is precipitated by hemoglobin, and by
      nothing else."  Had he discovered a gold mine, greater delight
      could not have shone upon his features.

          "Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said Stamford, introducing
      us.

          "How are you?" he said cordially, gripping my hand with a
      strength for which I should hardly have given him credit.  "You
      have been in Afghanistan, I perceive."

          "How on earth did you know that?" I asked in astonishment.

          "Never mind," said he, chuckling to himself.  "The question
      now is about hemoglobin.  No doubt you see the significance of
      this discovery of mine?"

          "It is interesting, chemically, no doubt," I answered, "but
      practically --"

          "Why, man, it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for
      years.  Don't you see that it gives us an infallible test for
      blood stains?  Come over here now!"  He seized me by the
      coat-sleeve in his eagerness, and drew me over to the table at
      which he had been working.  "Let us have some fresh blood," he
      said, digging a long bodkin into his finger, and drawing off the
      resulting drop of blood in a chemical pipette.  "Now, I add this
      small quantity of blood to a litre of water.  You perceive that
      the resulting mixture has the appearance of pure water.  The
      proportion of blood cannot be more than one in a million.  I have
      no doubt, however, that we shall be able to obtain the
      characteristic reaction."  As he spoke, he threw into the vessel a
      few white crystals, and then added some drops of a transparent
      fluid.  In an instant the contents assumed a dull mahogany colour,
      and a brownish dust was precipitated to the bottom of the glass
      jar.

          "Ha! ha!" he cried, clapping his hands, and looking as
      delighted as a child with a new toy.  "What do you think of that?"

          "It seems to be a very delicate test," I remarked.

          "Beautiful! beautiful!  The old guaiacum test was very clumsy
      and uncertain.  So is the microscopic examination for blood
      corpuscles.  The latter is valueless if the stains are a few hours
      old.  Now, this appears to act as well whether the blood is old or
      new.  Had this test been invented, there are hundreds of men now
      walking the earth who would long ago have paid the penalty of
      their crimes."

          "Indeed!" I murmured.

          "Criminal cases are continually hinging upon that one point.
      A man is suspected of a crime months perhaps after it has been
      committed.  His linen or clothes are examined and brownish stains
      discovered upon them.  Are they blood stains, or mud stains, or
      rust stains, or fruit stains, or what are they?  That is a
      question which has puzzled many an expert, and why?  Because there
      was no reliable test.  Now we have the Sherlock Holmes's test, and
      there will no longer be any difficulty."

          His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke, and he put his hand
      over his heart and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured
      up by his imagination.

          "You are to be congratulated," I remarked, considerably
      surprised at his enthusiasm.

          "There was the case of Von Bischoff at Frankfort last year.
      He would certainly have been hung had this test been in existence.
      Then there was Mason of Bradford, and the notorious Muller, and
      Lefevre of Montpellier, and Samson of New Orleans.  I could name a
      score of cases in which it would have been decisive."

          "You seem to be a walking calendar of crime," said Stamford
      with a laugh.  "You might start a paper on those lines.  Call it
      the `Police News of the Past.'"

          "Very interesting reading it might be made, too," remarked
      Sherlock Holmes, sticking a small piece of plaster over the prick
      on his finger.  "I have to be careful," he continued, turning to
      me with a smile, "for I dabble with poisons a good deal."  He held
      out his hand as he spoke, and I noticed that it was all mottled
      over with similar pieces of plaster, and discoloured with strong
      acids.

          "We came here on business," said Stamford, sitting down on a
      high three-legged stool, and pushing another one in my direction
      with his foot.  "My friend here wants to take diggings; and as you
      were complaining that you could get no one to go halves with you,
      I thought that I had better bring you together."

          Sherlock Holmes seemed delighted at the idea of sharing his
      rooms with me.  "I have my eye on a suite in Baker Street," he
      said, "which would suit us down to the ground.  You don't mind the
      smell of strong tobacco, I hope?"

          "I always smoke `ship's' myself," I answered.

          "That's good enough.  I generally have chemicals about, and
      occasionally do experiments.  Would that annoy you?"

          "By no means."

          "Let me see -- what are my other shortcomings?  I get in the
      dumps at times, and don't open my mouth for days on end.  You must
      not think I am sulky when I do that.  Just let me alone, and I'll
      soon be right.  What have you to confess now?  It's just as well
      for two fellows to know the worst of one another before they begin
      to live together."

          I laughed at this cross-examination.  "I keep a bull pup," I
      said, "and I object to rows because my nerves are shaken, and I
      get up at all sorts of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy.  I
      have another set of vices when I'm well, but those are the
      principal ones at present."

          "Do you include violin playing in your category of rows?" he
      asked, anxiously.

          "It depends on the player," I answered.  "A well-played violin
      is a treat for the gods -- a badly played one --"

          "Oh, that's all right," he cried, with a merry laugh.  "I
      think we may consider the thing as settled -- that is, if the
      rooms are agreeable to you."

          "When shall we see them?"

          "Call for me here at noon tomorrow, and we'll go together and
      settle everything," he answered.

          "All right -- noon exactly," said I, shaking his hand.

          We left him working among his chemicals, and we walked
      together towards my hotel.

          "By the way," I asked suddenly, stopping and turning upon
      Stamford, "how the deuce did he know that I had come from
      Afghanistan?"

          My companion smiled an enigmatical smile.  "That's just his
      little peculiarity," he said.  "A good many people have wanted to
      know how he finds things out."

          "Oh! a mystery is it?" I cried, rubbing my hands.  "This is
      very piquant.  I am much obliged to you for bringing us together.
      `The proper study of mankind is man,' you know."

          "You must study him, then," Stamford said, as he bade me
      good-bye.  "You'll find him a knotty problem, though.  I'll wager
      he learns more about you than you about him.  Good-bye."

          "Good-bye," I answered, and strolled on to my hotel,
      considerably interested in my new acquaintance.


                         A STUDY IN SCARLET -- Part 1
                     Chapter 2:  The Science of Deduction

      We met next day as he had arranged, and inspected the rooms at No.
      221B, Baker Street, of which he had spoken at our meeting.  They
      consisted of a couple of comfortable bedrooms and a single large
      airy sitting-room, cheerfully furnished, and illuminated by two
      broad windows.  So desirable in every way were the apartments, and
      so moderate did the terms seem when divided between us, that the
      bargain was concluded upon the spot, and we at once entered into
      possession.  That very evening I moved my things round from the
      hotel, and on the following morning Sherlock Holmes followed me
      with several boxes and portmanteaus.  For a day or two we were
      busily employed in unpacking and laying out our property to the
      best advantage.  That done, we gradually began to settle down and
      to accommodate ourselves to our new surroundings.

          Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with.  He was
      quiet in his ways, and his habits were regular.  It was rare for
      him to be up after ten at night, and he had invariably breakfasted
      and gone out before I rose in the morning.  Sometimes he spent his
      day at the chemical laboratory, sometimes in the dissecting-rooms,
      and occasionally in long walks, which appeared to take him into
      the lowest portions of the city.  Nothing could exceed his energy
      when the working fit was upon him; but now and again a reaction
      would seize him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in
      the sitting-room, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from
      morning to night.  On these occasions I have noticed such a
      dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes, that I might have suspected
      him of being addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the
      temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a
      notion.

          As the weeks went by, my interest in him and my curiosity as
      to his aims in life gradually deepened and increased.  His very
      person and appearance were such as to strike the attention of the
      most casual observer.  In height he was rather over six feet, and
      so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller.  His
      eyes were sharp and piercing, save during those intervals of
      torpor to which I have alluded; and his thin, hawk-like nose gave
      his whole expression an air of alertness and decision.  His chin,
      too, had the prominence and squareness which mark the man of
      determination.  His hands were invariably blotted with ink and
      stained with chemicals, yet he was possessed of extraordinary
      delicacy of touch, as I frequently had occasion to observe when I
      watched him manipulating his fragile philosophical instruments.

          The reader may set me down as a hopeless busybody, when I
      confess how much this man stimulated my curiosity, and how often I
      endeavoured to break through the reticence which he showed on all
      that concerned himself.  Before pronouncing judgment, however, be
      it remembered how objectless was my life, and how little there was
      to engage my attention.  My health forbade me from venturing out
      unless the weather was exceptionally genial, and I had no friends
      who would call upon me and break the monotony of my daily
      existence.  Under these circumstances, I eagerly hailed the little
      mystery which hung around my companion, and spent much of my time
      in endeavouring to unravel it.

          He was not studying medicine.  He had himself, in reply to a
      question, confirmed Stamford's opinion upon that point.  Neither
      did he appear to have pursued any course of reading which might
      fit him for a degree in science or any other recognized portal
      which would give him an entrance into the learned world.  Yet his
      zeal for certain studies was remarkable, and within eccentric
      limits his knowledge was so extraordinarily ample and minute that
      his observations have fairly astounded me.  Surely no man would
      work so hard or attain such precise information unless he had some
      definite end in view.  Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for
      the exactness of their learning.  No man burdens his mind with
      small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.

          His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge.  Of
      contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to
      know next to nothing.  Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired
      in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done.  My
      surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that
      he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of
      the Solar System.  That any civilized human being in this
      nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled
      round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that
      I could hardly realize it.

          "You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at my
      expression of surprise.  "Now that I do know it I shall do my best
      to forget it."

          "To forget it!"

          "You see," he explained, "I consider that a man's brain
      originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it
      with such furniture as you choose.  A fool takes in all the lumber
      of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which
      might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up
      with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying
      his hands upon it.  Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed
      as to what he takes into his brain-attic.  He will have nothing
      but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these
      he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order.  It
      is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and
      can distend to any extent.  Depend upon it there comes a time when
      for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew
      before.  It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have
      useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.

          "But the Solar System!" I protested.

          "What the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impatiently:
      "you say that we go round the sun.  If we went round the moon it
      would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work."

          I was on the point of asking him what that work might be, but
      something in his manner showed me that the question would be an
      unwelcome one.  I pondered over our short conversation, however,
      and endeavoured to draw my deductions from it.  He said that he
      would acquire no knowledge which did not bear upon his object.
      Therefore all the knowledge which he possessed was such as would
      be useful to him.  I enumerated in my own mind all the various
      points upon which he had shown me that he was exceptionally well
      informed.  I even took a pencil and jotted them down.  I could not
      help smiling at the document when I had completed it.  It ran in
      this way:

                         Sherlock Holmes -- his limits
          1.  Knowledge of Literature. -- Nil.
          2.     "      "  Philosophy. -- Nil.
          3.     "      "  Astronomy. -- Nil.
          4.     "      "  Politics. -- Feeble.
          5.     "      "  Botany. -- Variable.
                Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally.
                Knows nothing of practical gardening.
          6.  Knowledge of Geology. -- Practical, but limited.
                Tells at a glance different soils from each other.
                After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and
                told me by their colour and consistence in what part of
                London he had received them.

          7.  Knowledge of Chemistry. -- Profound.
          8.     "      "  Anatomy. -- Accurate, but unsystematic.
          9.     "      "  Sensational Literature. -- Immense.
                He appears to know every detail of every horror
                perpetrated in the century.
         10.  Plays the violin well.
         11.  Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.
         12.  Has a good practical knowledge of British law.

          When I had got so far in my list I threw it into the fire in
      despair.  "If I can only find what the fellow is driving at by
      reconciling all these accomplishments, and discovering a calling
      which needs them all," I said to myself, "I may as well give up
      the attempt at once."

          I see that I have alluded above to his powers upon the violin.
      These were very remarkable, but as eccentric as all his other
      accomplishments.  That he could play pieces, and difficult pieces,
      I knew well, because at my request he has played me some of
      Mendelssohn's Lieder, and other favourites.  When left to himself,
      however, he would seldom produce any music or attempt any
      recognized air.  Leaning back in his armchair of an evening, he
      would close his eyes and scrape carelessly at the fiddle which was
      thrown across his knee.  Sometimes the chords were sonorous and
      melancholy.  Occasionally they were fantastic and cheerful.
      Clearly they reflected the thoughts which possessed him, but
      whether the music aided those thoughts, or whether the playing was
      simply the result of a whim or fancy, was more than I could
      determine.  I might have rebelled against these exasperating solos
      had it not been that he usually terminated them by playing in
      quick succession a whole series of my favourite airs as a slight
      compensation for the trial upon my patience.

          During the first week or so we had no callers, and I had begun
      to think that my companion was as friendless a man as I was
      myself.  Presently, however, I found that he had many
      acquaintances, and those in the most different classes of society.
      There was one little sallow, rat-faced, dark-eyed fellow, who was
      introduced to me as Mr. Lestrade, and who came three or four times
      in a single week.  One morning a young girl called, fashionably
      dressed, and stayed for half an hour or more.  The same afternoon
      brought a gray-headed, seedy visitor, looking like a Jew peddler,
      who appeared to me to be much excited, and who was closely
      followed by a slipshod elderly woman.  On another occasion an old
      white-haired gentleman had an interview with my companion; and on
      another, a railway porter in his velveteen uniform.  When any of
      these nondescript individuals put in an appearance, Sherlock
      Holmes used to beg for the use of the sitting-room, and I would
      retire to my bedroom.  He always apologized to me for putting me
      to this inconvenience.  "I have to use this room as a place of
      business," he said, "and these people are my clients."  Again I
      had an opportunity of asking him a point-blank question, and again
      my delicacy prevented me from forcing another man to confide in
      me.  I imagined at the time that he had some strong reason for not
      alluding to it, but he soon dispelled the idea by coming round to
      the subject of his own accord.

          It was upon the 4th of March, as I have good reason to
      remember, that I rose somewhat earlier than usual, and found that
      Sherlock Holmes had not yet finished his breakfast.  The landlady
      had become so accustomed to my late habits that my place had not
      been laid nor my coffee prepared.  With the unreasonable petulance
      of mankind I rang the bell and gave a curt intimation that I was
      ready.  Then I picked up a magazine from the table and attempted
      to while away the time with it, while my companion munched
      silently at his toast.  One of the articles had a pencil mark at
      the heading, and I naturally began to run my eye through it.

          Its somewhat ambitious title was "The Book of Life," and it
      attempted to show how much an observant man might learn by an
      accurate and systematic examination of all that came in his way.
      It struck me as being a remarkable mixture of shrewdness and of
      absurdity.  The reasoning was close and intense, but the
      deductions appeared to me to be far fetched and exaggerated.  The
      writer claimed by a momentary expression, a twitch of a muscle or
      a glance of an eye, to fathom a man's inmost thoughts.  Deceit,
      according to him, was an impossibility in the case of one trained
      to observation and analysis.  His conclusions were as infallible
      as so many propositions of Euclid.  So startling would his results
      appear to the uninitiated that until they learned the processes by
      which he had arrived at them they might well consider him as a
      necromancer.

          "From a drop of water," said the writer, "a logician could
      infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having
      seen or heard of one or the other.  So all life is a great chain,
      the nature of which is known whenever we are shown a single link
      of it.  Like all other arts, the Science of Deduction and Analysis
      is one which can only be acquired by long and patient study, nor
      is life long enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest
      possible perfection in it.  Before turning to those moral and
      mental aspects of the matter which present the greatest
      difficulties, let the inquirer begin by mastering more elementary
      problems.  Let him, on meeting a fellow-mortal, learn at a glance
      to distinguish the history of the man, and the trade or profession
      to which he belongs.  Puerile as such an exercise may seem, it
      sharpens the faculties of observation, and teaches one where to
      look and what to look for.  By a man's finger-nails, by his
      coat-sleeve, by his boots, by his trouser-knees, by the
      callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his
      shirt-cuffs -- by each of these things a man's calling is plainly
      revealed.  That all united should fail to enlighten the competent
      inquirer in any case is almost inconceivable."

          "What ineffable twaddle!" I cried, slapping the magazine down
      on the table; "I never read such rubbish in my life."

          "What is it?" asked Sherlock Holmes.

          "Why, this article," I said, pointing at it with my eggspoon
      as I sat down to my breakfast.  "I see that you have read it since
      you have marked it.  I don't deny that it is smartly written.  It
      irritates me, though.  It is evidently the theory of some armchair
      lounger who evolves all these neat little paradoxes in the
      seclusion of his own study.  It is not practical.  I should like
      to see him clapped down in a third-class carriage on the
      Underground, and asked to give the trades of all his fellow
      travellers.  I would lay a thousand to one against him."

          "You would lose your money," Holmes remarked calmly.  "As for
      the article, I wrote it myself."

          "You!"

          "Yes; I have a turn both for observation and for deduction.
      The theories which I have expressed there, and which appear to you
      to be so chimerical, are really extremely practical -- so
      practical that I depend upon them for my bread and cheese."

          "And how?" I asked involuntarily.

          "Well, I have a trade of my own.  I suppose I am the only one
      in the world.  I'm a consulting detective, if you can understand
      what that is.  Here in London we have lots of government
      detectives and lots of private ones.  When these fellows are at
      fault, they come to me, and I manage to put them on the right
      scent.  They lay all the evidence before me, and I am generally
      able, by the help of my knowledge of the history of crime, to set
      them straight.  There is a strong family resemblance about
      misdeeds, and if you have all the details of a thousand at your
      finger ends, it is odd if you can't unravel the thousand and
      first.  Lestrade is a well-known detective.  He got himself into a
      fog recently over a forgery case, and that was what brought him
      here."

          "And these other people?"

          "They are mostly sent on by private inquiry agencies.  They
      are all people who are in trouble about something and want a
      little enlightening.  I listen to their story, they listen to my
      comments, and then I pocket my fee."

          "But do you mean to say," I said, "that without leaving your
      room you can unravel some knot which other men can make nothing
      of, although they have seen every detail for themselves?"

          "Quite so.  I have a kind of intuition that way.  Now and
      again a case turns up which is a little more complex.  Then I have
      to bustle about and see things with my own eyes.  You see I have a
      lot of special knowledge which I apply to the problem, and which
      facilitates matters wonderfully.  Those rules of deduction laid
      down in that article which aroused your scorn are invaluable to me
      in practical work.  Observation with me is second nature.  You
      appeared to be surprised when I told you, on our first meeting,
      that you had come from Afghanistan."

          "You were told, no doubt."

          "Nothing of the sort.  I knew you came from Afghanistan.  From
      long habit the train of thoughts ran so swiftly through my mind
      that I arrived at the conclusion without being conscious of
      intermediate steps.  There were such steps, however.  The train of
      reasoning ran, `Here is a gentleman of a medical type, but with
      the air of a military man.  Clearly an army doctor, then.  He has
      just come from the tropics, for his face is dark, and that is not
      the natural tint of his skin, for his wrists are fair.  He has
      undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says clearly.
      His left arm has been injured.  He holds it in a stiff and
      unnatural manner.  Where in the tropics could an English army
      doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded?  Clearly
      in Afghanistan.'  The whole train of thought did not occupy a
      second.  I then remarked that you came from Afghanistan, and you
      were astonished."

          "It is simple enough as you explain it," I said, smiling.
      "You remind me of Edgar Allan Poe's Dupin.  I had no idea that
      such individuals did exist outside of stories."

          Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe.  "No doubt you think
      that you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin," he
      observed.  "Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow.
      That trick of his of breaking in on his friends' thoughts with an
      apropos remark after a quarter of an hour's silence is really very
      showy and superficial.  He had some analytical genius, no doubt;
      but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to
      imagine."

          "Have you read Gaboriau's works?" I asked.  "Does Lecoq come
      up to your idea of a detective?"

          Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically.  "Lecoq was a miserable
      bungler," he said, in an angry voice; "he had only one thing to
      recommend him, and that was his energy.  That book made me
      positively ill.  The question was how to identify an unknown
      prisoner.  I could have done it in twenty-four hours.  Lecoq took
      six months or so.  It might be made a textbook for detectives to
      teach them what to avoid."

          I felt rather indignant at having two characters whom I had
      admired treated in this cavalier style.  I walked over to the
      window and stood looking out into the busy street.  "This fellow
      may be very clever," I said to myself, "but he is certainly very
      conceited."

          "There are no crimes and no criminals in these days," he said,
      querulously.  "What is the use of having brains in our profession?
      I know well that I have it in me to make my name famous.  No man
      lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study
      and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done.
      And what is the result?  There is no crime to detect, or, at most,
      some bungling villainy with a motive so transparent that even a
      Scotland Yard official can see through it."

          I was still annoyed at his bumptious style of conversation.  I
      thought it best to change the topic.

          "I wonder what that fellow is looking for?" I asked, pointing
      to a stalwart, plainly dressed individual who was walking slowly
      down the other side of the street, looking anxiously at the
      numbers.  He had a large blue envelope in his hand, and was
      evidently the bearer of a message.

          "You mean the retired sergeant of Marines," said Sherlock
      Holmes.

          "Brag and bounce!" thought I to myself.  "He knows that I
      cannot verify his guess."

          The thought had hardly passed through my mind when the man
      whom we were watching caught sight of the number on our door, and
      ran rapidly across the roadway.  We heard a loud knock, a deep
      voice below, and heavy steps ascending the stair.

          "For Mr. Sherlock Holmes," he said, stepping into the room and
      handing my friend the letter.

          Here was an opportunity of taking the conceit out of him.  He
      little thought of this when he made that random shot.  "May I ask,
      my lad," I said, in the blandest voice, "what your trade may be?"

          "Commissionaire, sir," he said, gruffly.  "Uniform away for
      repairs."

          "And you were?" I asked, with a slightly malicious glance at
      my companion.

          "A sergeant, sir, Royal Marine Light Infantry, sir.  No
      answer?  Right, sir."

          He clicked his heels together, raised his hand in salute, and
      was gone.

                         A STUDY IN SCARLET -- Part 1
                   Chapter 3:  The Lauriston Garden Mystery

      I confess that I was considerably startled by this fresh proof of
      the practical nature of my companion's theories.  My respect for
      his powers of analysis increased wondrously.  There still remained
      some lurking suspicion in my mind, however, that the whole thing
      was a prearranged episode, intended to dazzle me, though what
      earthly object he could have in taking me in was past my
      comprehension.  When I looked at him, he had finished reading the
      note, and his eyes had assumed the vacant, lack-lustre expression
      which showed mental abstraction.

          "How in the world did you deduce that?" I asked.

          "Deduce what?" said he, petulantly.

          "Why, that he was a retired sergeant of Marines."

          "I have no time for trifles," he answered, brusquely; then
      with a smile, "Excuse my rudeness.  You broke the thread of my
      thoughts; but perhaps it is as well.  So you actually were not
      able to see that that man was a sergeant of Marines?"

          "No, indeed."

          "It was easier to know it than to explain why I know it.  If
      you were asked to prove that two and two made four, you might find
      some difficulty, and yet you are quite sure of the fact.  Even
      across the street I could see a great blue anchor tattooed on the
      back of the fellow's hand.  That smacked of the sea.  He had a
      military carriage, however, and regulation side whiskers.  There
      we have the marine.  He was a man with some amount of
      self-importance and a certain air of command.  You must have
      observed the way in which he held his head and swung his cane.  A
      steady, respectable, middle-aged man, too, on the face of him --
      all facts which led me to believe that he had been a sergeant."

          "Wonderful!" I ejaculated.

          "Commonplace," said Holmes, though I thought from his
      expression that he was pleased at my evident surprise and
      admiration.  "I said just now that there were no criminals.  It
      appears that I am wrong -- look at this!"  He threw me over the
      note which the commissionaire had brought.

          "Why," I cried, as I cast my eye over it, "this is terrible!"

          "It does seem to be a little out of the common," he remarked,
      calmly.  "Would you mind reading it to me aloud?"

          This is the letter which I read to him, --

          "My DEAR MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES:

              "There has been a bad business during the night at 3,
          Lauriston Gardens, off the Brixton Road.  Our man on the beat
          saw a light there about two in the morning, and as the house
          was an empty one, suspected that something was amiss.  He
          found the door open, and in the front room, which is bare of
          furniture, discovered the body of a gentleman, well dressed,
          and having cards in his pocket bearing the name of `Enoch J.
          Drebber, Cleveland, Ohio, U. S. A.'  There had been no
          robbery, nor is there any evidence as to how the man met his
          death.  There are marks of blood in the room, but there is no
          wound upon his person.  We are at a loss as to how he came
          into the empty house; indeed, the whole affair is a puzzler.
          If you can come round to the house any time before twelve, you
          will find me there.  I have left everything in statu quo until
          I hear from you.  If you are unable to come, I shall give you
          fuller details, and would esteem it a great kindness if you
          would favour me with your opinions.

                                                "Yours faithfully,
                                                  "TOBIAS GREGSON."

          "Gregson is the smartest of the Scotland Yarders," my friend
      remarked; "he and Lestrade are the pick of a bad lot.  They are
      both quick and energetic, but conventional -- shockingly so.  They
      have their knives into one another, too.  They are as jealous as a
      pair of professional beauties.  There will be some fun over this
      case if they are both put upon the scent."

          I was amazed at the calm way in which he rippled on.  "Surely
      there is not a moment to be lost," I cried; "shall I go and order
      you a cab?"

          "I'm not sure about whether I shall go.  I am the most
      incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather -- that is,
      when the fit is on me, for I can he spry enough at times."

          "Why, it is just such a chance as you have been longing for."

          "My dear fellow, what does it matter to me?  Supposing I
      unravel the whole matter, you may be sure that Gregson, Lestrade,
      and Co. will pocket all the credit.  That comes of being an
      unofficial personage."

          "But he begs you to help him."

          "Yes.  He knows that I am his superior, and acknowledges it to
      me; but he would cut his tongue out before he would own it to any
      third person.  However, we may as well go and have a look.  I
      shall work it out on my own hook.  I may have a laugh at them, if
      I have nothing else.  Come on!"

          He hustled on his overcoat, and bustled about in a way that
      showed that an energetic fit had superseded the apathetic one.

          "Get your hat," he said.

          "You wish me to come?"

          "Yes, if you have nothing better to do."  A minute later we
      were both in a hansom, driving furiously for the Brixton Road.

          It was a foggy, cloudy morning, and a dun-coloured veil hung
      over the housetops, looking like the reflection of the
      mud-coloured streets beneath.  My companion was in the best of
      spirits, and prattled away about Cremona fiddles and the
      difference between a Stradivarius and an Amati.  As for myself, I
      was silent, for the dull weather and the melancholy business upon
      which we were engaged depressed my spirits.

          "You don't seem to give much thought to the matter in hand," I
      said at last, interrupting Holmes's musical disquisition.

          "No data yet," he answered.  "It is a capital mistake to
      theorize before you have all the evidence.  It biases the
      judgment."

          "You will have your data soon," I remarked, pointing with my
      finger; "this is the Brixton Road, and that is the house, if I am
      not very much mistaken."

          "So it is.  Stop, driver, stop!"  We were still a hundred
      yards or so from it, but he insisted upon our alighting, and we
      finished our journey upon foot.

          Number 3, Lauriston Gardens wore an ill-omened and minatory
      look.  It was one of four which stood back some little way from
      the street, two being occupied and two empty.  The latter looked
      out with three tiers of vacant melancholy windows, which were
      blank and dreary, save that here and there a "To Let" card had
      developed like a cataract upon the bleared panes.  A small garden
      sprinkled over with a scattered eruption of sickly plants
      separated each of these houses from the street, and was traversed
      by a narrow pathway, yellowish in colour, and consisting
      apparently of a mixture of clay and of gravel.  The whole place
      was very sloppy from the rain which had fallen through the night.
      The garden was bounded by a three-foot brick wall with a fringe of
      wood rails upon the top, and against this wall was leaning a
      stalwart police constable, surrounded by a small knot of loafers,
      who craned their necks and strained their eyes in the vain hope of
      catching some glimpse of the proceedings within.

          I had imagined that Sherlock Holmes would at once have hurried
      into the house and plunged into a study of the mystery.  Nothing
      appeared to be further from his intention.  With an air of
      nonchalance which, under the circumstances, seemed to me to border
      upon affectation, he lounged up and down the pavement, and gazed
      vacantly at the ground, the sky, the opposite houses and the line
      of railings.  Having finished his scrutiny, he proceeded slowly
      down the path, or rather down the fringe of grass which flanked
      the path, keeping his eyes riveted upon the ground.  Twice he
      stopped, and once I saw him smile, and heard him utter an
      exclamation of satisfaction.  There were many marks of footsteps
      upon the wet clayey soil; but since the police had been coming and
      going over it, I was unable to see how my companion could hope to
      learn anything from it.  Still I had had such extraordinary
      evidence of the quickness of his perceptive faculties, that I had
      no doubt that he could see a great deal which was hidden from me.

          At the door of the house we were met by a tall, white-faced,
      flaxen-haired man, with a notebook in his hand, who rushed forward
      and wrung my companion's hand with effusion.  "It is indeed kind
      of you to come," he said, "I have had everything left untouched."

          "Except that!" my friend answered, pointing at the pathway.
      "If a herd of buffaloes had passed along, there could not be a
      greater mess.  No doubt, however, you had drawn your own
      conclusions, Gregson, before you permitted this."

          "I have had so much to do inside the house," the detective
      said evasively.  "My colleague, Mr. Lestrade, is here.  I had
      relied upon him to look after this."

          Holmes glanced at me and raised his eyebrows sardonically.
      "With two such men as yourself and Lestrade upon the ground, there
      will not be much for a third party to find out," he said.

          Gregson rubbed his hands in a self-satisfied way.  "I think we
      have done all that can be done," he answered; "it's a queer case,
      though, and I knew your taste for such things."

          "You did not come here in a cab?" asked Sherlock Holmes.

          "No, sir."

          "Nor Lestrade?"

          "No, sir."

          "Then let us go and look at the room."  With which
      inconsequent remark he strode on into the house followed by
      Gregson, whose features expressed his astonishment.

          A short passage, bare-planked and dusty, led to the kitchen
      and offices.  Two doors opened out of it to the left and to the
      right.  One of these had obviously been closed for many weeks.
      The other belonged to the dining-room, which was the apartment in
      which the mysterious affair had occurred.  Holmes walked in, and I
      followed him with that subdued feeling at my heart which the
      presence of death inspires.

          It was a large square room, looking all the larger from the
      absence of all furniture.  A vulgar flaring paper adorned the
      walls, but it was blotched in places with mildew, and here and
      there great strips had become detached and hung down, exposing the
      yellow plaster beneath.  Opposite the door was a showy fireplace,
      surmounted by a mantelpiece of imitation white marble.  On one
      corner of this was stuck the stump of a red wax candle.  The
      solitary window was so dirty that the light was hazy and
      uncertain, giving a dull gray tinge to everything, which was
      intensified by the thick layer of dust which coated the whole
      apartment.

          All these details I observed afterwards.  At present my
      attention was centred upon the single, grim, motionless figure
      which lay stretched upon the boards, with vacant, sightless eyes
      staring up at the discoloured ceiling.  It was that of a man about
      forty-three or forty-four years of age, middle-sized,
      broad-shouldered, with crisp curling black hair, and a short,
      stubbly beard.  He was dressed in a heavy broadcloth frock coat
      and waistcoat, with light-coloured trousers, and immaculate collar
      and cuffs.  A top hat, well brushed and trim, was placed upon the
      floor beside him.  His hands were clenched and his arms thrown
      abroad, while his lower limbs were interlocked, as though his
      death struggle had been a grievous one.  On his rigid face there
      stood an expression of horror, and, as it seemed to me, of hatred,
      such as I have never seen upon human features.  This malignant and
      terrible contortion, combined with the low forehead, blunt nose,
      and prognathous jaw, gave the dead man a singularly simious and
      ape-like appearance, which was increased by his writhing,
      unnatural posture.  I have seen death in many forms, but never has
      it appeared to me in a more fearsome aspect than in that dark,
      grimy apartment, which looked out upon one of the main arteries of
      suburban London.

          Lestrade, lean and ferret-like as ever, was standing by the
      doorway, and greeted my companion and myself.

          "This case will make a stir, sir," he remarked.  "It beats
      anything I have seen, and I am no chicken."

          "There is no clue?" said Gregson.

          "None at all," chimed in Lestrade.

          Sherlock Holmes approached the body, and, kneeling down,
      examined it intently.  "You are sure that there is no wound?" he
      asked, pointing to numerous gouts and splashes of blood which lay
      all round.

          "Positive!" cried both detectives.

          "Then, of course, this blood belongs to a second individual --
      presumably the murderer, if murder has been committed.  It reminds
      me of the circumstances attendant on the death of Van Jansen, in
      Utrecht, in the year '34.  Do you remember the case, Gregson?"

          "No, sir."

          "Read it up -- you really should.  There is nothing new under
      the sun.  It has all been done before."

          As he spoke, his nimble fingers were flying here, there, and
      everywhere, feeling, pressing, unbuttoning, examining, while his
      eyes wore the same far-away expression which I have already
      remarked upon.  So swiftly was the examination made, that one
      would hardly have guessed the minuteness with which it was
      conducted.  Finally, he sniffed the dead man's lips, and then
      glanced at the soles of his patent leather boots.

          "He has not been moved at all?" he asked.

          "No more than was necessary for the purpose of our
      examination."

          "You can take him to the mortuary now," he said.  "There is
      nothing more to be learned."

          Gregson had a stretcher and four men at hand.  At his call
      they entered the room, and the stranger was lifted and carried
      out.  As they raised him, a ring tinkled down and rolled across
      the floor.  Lestrade grabbed it up and stared at it with mystified
      eyes.

          "There's been a woman here," he cried.  "It's a woman's
      wedding ring."

          He held it out, as he spoke, upon the palm of his hand.  We
      all gathered round him and gazed at it.  There could be no doubt
      that that circlet of plain gold had once adorned the finger of a
      bride.

          "This complicates matters," said Gregson.  "Heaven knows, they
      were complicated enough before."

          "You're sure it doesn't simplify them?" observed Holmes.
      "There's nothing to be learned by staring at it.  What did you
      find in his pockets?"

          "We have it all here," said Gregson, pointing to a litter of
      objects upon one of the bottom steps of the stairs.  "A gold
      watch, No. 97163, by Barraud, of London.  Gold Albert chain, very
      heavy and solid.  Gold ring, with masonic device.  Gold pin --
      bull-dog's head, with rubies as eyes.  Russian leather cardcase,
      with cards of Enoch J. Drebber of Cleveland, corresponding with
      the E. J. D. upon the linen.  No purse, but loose money to the
      extent of seven pounds thirteen.  Pocket edition of Boccaccio's
      `Decameron,' with name of Joseph Stangerson upon the flyleaf.  Two
      letters -- one addressed to E. J. Drebber and one to Joseph
      Stangerson."

          "At what address?"

          "American Exchange, Strand -- to be left till called for.
      They are both from the Guion Steamship Company, and refer to the
      sailing of their boats from Liverpool.  It is clear that this
      unfortunate man was about to return to New York."

          "Have you made any inquiries as to this man Stangerson?"

          "I did it at once, sir," said Gregson.  "I have had
      advertisements sent to all the newspapers, and one of my men has
      gone to the American Exchange, but he has not returned yet."

          "Have you sent to Cleveland?"

          "We telegraphed this morning."

          "How did you word your inquiries?"

          "We simply detailed the circumstances, and said that we should
      be glad of any information which could help us."

          "You did not ask for particulars on any point which appeared
      to you to be crucial?"

          "I asked about Stangerson."

          "Nothing else?  Is there no circumstance on which this whole
      case appears to hinge?  Will you not telegraph again?"

          "I have said all I have to say," said Gregson, in an offended
      voice.

          Sherlock Holmes chuckled to himself, and appeared to be about
      to make some remark, when Lestrade, who had been in the front room
      while we were holding this conversation in the hall, reappeared
      upon the scene, rubbing his hands in a pompous and self-satisfied
      manner.

          "Mr. Gregson," he said, "I have just made a discovery of the
      highest importance, and one which would have been overlooked had I
      not made a careful examination of the walls."

          The little man's eyes sparkled as he spoke, and he was
      evidently in a state of suppressed exultation at having scored a
      point against his colleague.

          "Come here," he said, bustling back into the room, the
      atmosphere of which felt clearer since the removal of its ghastly
      inmate.  "Now, stand there!"

          He struck a match on his boot and held it up against the wall.

          "Look at that!" he said, triumphantly.

          I have remarked that the paper had fallen away in parts.  In
      this particular corner of the room a large piece had peeled off,
      leaving a yellow square of coarse plastering.  Across this bare
      space there was scrawled in blood-red letters a single word --

                                     RACHE

          "What do you think of that?" cried the detective, with the air
      of a showman exhibiting his show.  "This was overlooked because it
      was in the darkest corner of the room, and no one thought of
      looking there.  The murderer has written it with his or her own
      blood.  See this smear where it has trickled down the wall!  That
      disposes of the idea of suicide anyhow.  Why was that corner
      chosen to write it on?  I will tell you.  See that candle on the
      mantelpiece.  It was lit at the time, and if it was lit this
      corner would be the brightest instead of the darkest portion of
      the wall."

          "And what does it mean now that you have found it?" asked
      Gregson in a depreciatory voice.

          "Mean?  Why, it means that the writer was going to put the
      female name Rachel, but was disturbed before he or she had time to
      finish.  You mark my words, when this case comes to be cleared up,
      you will find that a woman named Rachel has something to do with
      it.  It's all very well for you to laugh, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.
      You may be very smart and clever, but the old hound is the best,
      when all is said and done."

          "I really beg your pardon!" said my companion, who had ruffled
      the little man's temper by bursting into an explosion of laughter.
      "You certainly have the credit of being the first of us to find
      this out and, as you say, it bears every mark of having been
      written by the other participant in last night's mystery.  I have
      not had time to examine this room yet, but with your permission I
      shall do so now."

          As he spoke, he whipped a tape measure and a large round
      magnifying glass from his pocket.  With these two implements he
      trotted noiselessly about the room, sometimes stopping,
      occasionally kneeling, and once lying flat upon his face.  So
      engrossed was he with his occupation that he appeared to have
      forgotten our presence, for he chattered away to himself under his
      breath the whole time, keeping up a running fire of exclamations,
      groans, whistles, and little cries suggestive of encouragement and
      of hope.  As I watched him I was irresistibly reminded of a
      pure-blooded, well-trained foxhound, as it dashes backward and
      forward through the covert, whining in its eagerness, until it
      comes across the lost scent.  For twenty minutes or more he
      continued his researches, measuring with the most exact care the
      distance between marks which were entirely invisible to me, and
      occasionally applying his tape to the walls in an equally
      incomprehensible manner.  In one place he gathered up very
      carefully a little pile of gray dust from the floor, and packed it
      away in an envelope.  Finally he examined with his glass the word
      upon the wall, going over every letter of it with the most minute
      exactness.  This done, he appeared to be satisfied, for he
      replaced his tape and his glass in his pocket.

          "They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking
      pains," he remarked with a smile.  "It's a very bad definition,
      but it does apply to detective work."

          Gregson and Lestrade had watched the manoeuvres of their
      amateur companion with considerable curiosity and some contempt.
      They evidently failed to appreciate the fact, which I had begun to
      realize, that Sherlock Holmes's smallest actions were all directed
      towards some definite and practical end.

          "What do you think of it, sir?" they both asked.

          "It would be robbing you of the credit of the case if I were
      to presume to help you," remarked my friend.  "You are doing so
      well now that it would be a pity for anyone to interfere."  There
      was a world of sarcasm in his voice as he spoke.  "If you will let
      me know how your investigations go," he continued, "I shall be
      happy to give you any help I can.  In the meantime I should like
      to speak to the constable who found the body.  Can you give me his
      name and address?"

          Lestrade glanced at his notebook.  "John Rance," he said.  "He
      is off duty now.  You will find him at 46, Audley Court,
      Kennington Park Gate."

          Holmes took a note of the address.

          "Come along, Doctor," he said: "we shall go and look him up.
      I'll tell you one thing which may help you in the case," he
      continued, turning to the two detectives.  "There has been murder
      done, and the murderer was a man.  He was more than six feet high,
      was in the prime of life, had small feet for his height, wore
      coarse, square-toed boots and smoked a Trichinopoly cigar.  He
      came here with his victim in a four-wheeled cab, which was drawn
      by a horse with three old shoes and one new one on his off
      fore-leg.  In all probability the murderer had a florid face, and
      the finger-nails of his right hand were remarkably long.  These
      are only a few indications, but they may assist you."

          Lestrade and Gregson glanced at each other with an incredulous
      smile.

          "If this man was murdered, how was it done?" asked the former.

          "Poison," said Sherlock Holmes curtly, and strode off.  "One
      other thing, Lestrade," he added, turning round at the door:
      "`Rache,' is the German for `revenge'; so don't lose your time
      looking for Miss Rachel."

          With which Parthian shot he walked away, leaving the two
      rivals open mouthed behind him.

                         A STUDY IN SCARLET -- Part 1
                    Chapter 4:  What John Range Had to Tell

      It was one o'clock when we left No. 3, Lauriston Gardens.
      Sherlock Holmes led me to the nearest telegraph office, whence he
      dispatched a long telegram.  He then hailed a cab, and ordered the
      driver to take us to the address given us by Lestrade.

          "There is nothing like first-hand evidence," he remarked; "as
      a matter of fact, my mind is entirely made up upon the case, but
      still we may as well learn all that is to be learned."

          "You amaze me, Holmes," said I.  "Surely you are not as sure
      as you pretend to be of all those particulars which you gave."

          "There's no room for a mistake," he answered.  "The very first
      thing which I observed on arriving there was that a cab had made
      two ruts with its wheels close to the curb.  Now, up to last
      night, we have had no rain for a week, so that those wheels which
      left such a deep impression must have been there during the night.
      There were the marks of the horse's hoofs, too, the outline of one
      of which was far more clearly cut than that of the other three,
      showing that that was a new shoe.  Since the cab was there after
      the rain began, and was not there at any time during the
      morning -- I have Gregson's word for that -- it follows that it
      must have been there during the night, and therefore, that it
      brought those two individuals to the house."

          "That seems simple enough," said I; "but how about the other
      man's height?"

          "Why, the height of a man, in nine cases out of ten, can be
      told from the length of his stride.  It is a simple calculation
      enough, though there is no use my boring you with figures.  I had
      this fellow's stride both on the clay outside and on the dust
      within.  Then I had a way of checking my calculation.  When a man
      writes on a wall, his instinct leads him to write above the level
      of his own eyes.  Now that writing was just over six feet from the
      ground.  It was child's play."

          "And his age?" I asked.

          "Well, if a man can stride four and a half feet without the
      smallest effort, he can't be quite in the sere and yellow.  That
      was the breadth of a puddle on the garden walk which he had
      evidently walked across.  Patent-leather boots had gone round, and
      Square-toes had hopped over.  There is no mystery about it at all.
      I am simply applying to ordinary life a few of those precepts of
      observation and deduction which I advocated in that article.  Is
      there anything else that puzzles you?"

          "The finger-nails and the Trichinopoly," I suggested.

          "The writing on the wall was done with a man's forefinger
      dipped in blood.  My glass allowed me to observe that the plaster
      was slightly scratched in doing it, which would not have been the
      case if the man's nail had been trimmed.  I gathered up some
      scattered ash from the floor.  It was dark in colour and flaky --
      such an ash is only made by a Trichinopoly.  I have made a special
      study of cigar ashes -- in fact, I have written a monograph upon
      the subject.  I flatter myself that I can distinguish at a glance
      the ash of any known brand either of cigar or of tobacco.  It is
      just in such details that the skilled detective differs from the
      Gregson and Lestrade type."

          "And the florid face?" I asked.

          "Ah, that was a more daring shot, though I have no doubt that
      I was right.  You must not ask me that at the present state of the
      affair."

          I passed my hand over my brow.  "My head is in a whirl," I
      remarked; "the more one thinks of it the more mysterious it grows.
      How came these two men -- if there were two men -- into an empty
      house?  What has become of the cabman who drove them?  How could
      one man compel another to take poison?  Where did the blood come
      from?  What was the object of the murderer, since robbery had no
      part in it?  How came the woman's ring there?  Above all, why
      should the second man write up the German word RACHE before
      decamping?  I confess that I cannot see any possible way of
      reconciling all these facts."

          My companion smiled approvingly.

          "You sum up the difficulties of the situation succinctly and
      well," he said.  "There is much that is still obscure, though I
      have quite made up my mind on the main facts.  As to poor
      Lestrade's discovery, it was simply a blind intended to put the
      police upon a wrong track, by suggesting Socialism and secret
      societies.  It was not done by a German.  The A, if you noticed,
      was printed somewhat after the German fashion.  Now, a real German
      invariably prints in the Latin character, so that we may safely
      say that this was not written by one, but by a clumsy imitator who
      overdid his part.  It was simply a ruse to divert inquiry into a
      wrong channel.  I'm not going to tell you much more of the case,
      Doctor.  You know a conjurer gets no credit when once he has
      explained his trick; and if I show you too much of my method of
      working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary
      individual after all."

          "I shall never do that," I answered; "you have brought
      detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in
      this world."

          My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the
      earnest way in which I uttered them.  I had already observed that
      he was as sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any
      girl could be of her beauty.

          "I'll tell you one other thing," he said.  "Patent-leathers
      and Square-toes came in the same cab, and they walked down the
      pathway together as friendly as possible -- arm-in-arm, in all
      probability.  When they got inside, they walked up and down the
      room -- or rather, Patent-leathers stood still while Square-toes
      walked up and down.  I could read all that in the dust; and I
      could read that as he walked he grew more and more excited.  That
      is shown by the increased length of his strides.  He was talking
      all the while, and working himself up, no doubt, into a fury.
      Then the tragedy occurred.  I've told you all I know myself now,
      for the rest is mere surmise and conjecture.  We have a good
      working basis, however, on which to start.  We must hurry up, for
      I want to go to Halle's concert to hear Norman Neruda this
      afternoon."

          This conversation had occurred while our cab had been
      threading its way through a long succession of dingy streets and
      dreary byways.  In the dingiest and dreariest of them our driver
      suddenly came to a stand.  "That's Audley Court in there," he
      said, pointing to a narrow slit in the line of dead-coloured
      brick.  "You'll find me here when you come back."

          Audley Court was not an attractive locality.  The narrow
      passage led us into a quadrangle paved with flags and lined by
      sordid dwellings.  We picked our way among groups of dirty
      children, and through lines of discoloured linen, until we came to
      Number 46, the door of which was decorated with a small slip of
      brass on which the name Rance was engraved.  On inquiry we found
      that the constable was in bed, and we were shown into a little
      front parlour to await his coming.

          He appeared presently, looking a little irritable at being
      disturbed in his slumbers.  "I made my report at the office," he
      said.

          Holmes took a half-sovereign from his pocket and played with
      it pensively.  "We thought that we should like to hear it all from
      your own lips," he said.

          "I shall be most happy to tell you anything I can," the
      constable answered, with his eyes upon the little golden disc.

          "Just let us hear it all in your own way as it occurred."

          Rance sat down on the horsehair sofa, and knitted his brows,
      as though determined not to omit anything in his narrative.

          "I'Il tell it ye from the beginning," he said.  "My time is
      from ten at night to six in the morning.  At eleven there was a
      fight at the White Hart; but bar that all was quiet enough on the
      beat.  At one o'clock it began to rain, and I met Harry Murcher --
      him who has the Holland Grove beat -- and we stood together at the
      corner of Henrietta Street a-talkin'.  Presently -- maybe about
      two or a little after -- I thought I would take a look round and
      see that all was right down the Brixton Road.  It was precious
      dirty and lonely.  Not a soul did I meet all the way down, though
      a cab or two went past me.  I was a-strollin' down, thinkin'
      between ourselves how uncommon handy a four of gin hot would be,
      when suddenly the glint of a light caught my eye in the window of
      that same house.  Now, I knew that them two houses in Lauriston
      Gardens was empty on account of him that owns them who won't have
      the drains seed to, though the very last tenant what lived in one
      of them died o' typhoid fever.  I was knocked all in a heap,
      therefore, at seeing a light in the window, and I suspected as
      something was wrong.  When I got to the door --"

          "You stopped, and then walked back to the garden gate," my
      companion interrupted.  "What did you do that for?"

          Rance gave a violent jump, and stared at Sherlock Holmes with
      the utmost amazement upon his features.

          "Why, that's true, sir," he said; "though how you come to know
      it, Heaven only knows.  Ye see when I got up to the door, it was
      so still and so lonesome, that I thought I'd be none the worse for
      someone with me.  I ain't afeared of anything on this side o' the
      grave; but I thought that maybe it was him that died o' the
      typhoid inspecting the drains what killed him.  The thought gave
      me a kind o' turn, and I walked back to the gate to see if I could
      see Murcher's lantern, but there wasn't no sign of him nor of
      anyone else."

          "There was no one in the street?"

          "Not a livin' soul, sir, nor as much as a dog.  Then I pulled
      myself together and went back and pushed the door open.  All was
      quiet inside, so I went into the room where the light was
      a-burnin'.  There was a candle flickerin' on the mantelpiece -- a
      red wax one -- and by its light I saw --"

          "Yes, I know all that you saw.  You walked round the room
      several times, and you knelt down by the body, and then you walked
      through and tried the kitchen door, and then --"

          John Rance sprang to his feet with a frightened face and
      suspicion in his eyes.  "Where was you hid to see all that?" he
      cried.  "It seems to me that you knows a deal more than you
      should."

          Holmes laughed and threw his card across the table to the
      constable.  "Don't go arresting me for the murder," he said. "I am
      one of the hounds and not the wolf; Mr. Gregson or Mr. Lestrade
      will answer for that.  Go on, though.  What did you do next?"

          Rance resumed his seat, without, however, losing his mystified
      expression.  "I went back to the gate and sounded my whistle.
      That brought Murcher and two more to the spot."

          "Was the street empty then?"

          "Well, it was, as far as anybody that could be of any good
      goes."

          "What do you mean?"

          The constable's features broadened into a grin.  "I've seen
      many a drunk chap in my time," he said, "but never anyone so
      cryin' drunk as that cove.  He was at the gate when I came out,
      a-leanin' up ag'in the railings, and a-singin' at the pitch o' his
      lungs about Columbines New-fangled Banner, or some such stuff.  He
      couldn't stand, far less help."

          "What sort of a man was he?" asked Sherlock Holmes.

          John Rance appeared to be somewhat irritated at this
      digression.  "He was an uncommon drunk sort o' man," he said.
      "He'd ha' found hisself in the station if we hadn't been so took
      up."

          "His face -- his dress -- didn't you notice them?" Holmes
      broke in impatiently.

          "I should think I did notice them, seeing that I had to prop
      him up -- me and Murcher between us.  He was a long chap, with a
      red face, the lower part muffled round --"

          "That will do," cried Holmes.  "What became of him?"

          "We'd enough to do without lookin' after him," the policeman
      said, in an aggrieved voice.  "I'll wager he found his way home
      all right."

          "How was he dressed?"

          "A brown overcoat."

          "Had he a whip in his hand?"

          "A whip -- no."

          "He must have left it behind," muttered my companion.  "You
      didn't happen to see or hear a cab after that?"

          "No."

          "There's a half-sovereign for you," my companion said,
      standing up and taking his hat.  "I am afraid, Rance, that you
      will never rise in the force.  That head of yours should be for
      use as well as ornament.  You might have gained your sergeant's
      stripes last night.  The man whom you held in your hands is the
      man who holds the clue of this mystery, and whom we are seeking.
      There is no use of arguing about it now; I tell you that it is so.
      Come along, Doctor."

          We started off for the cab together, leaving our informant
      incredulous, but obviously uncomfortable.

          "The blundering fool!" Holmes said, bitterly, as we drove back
      to our lodgings.  "Just to think of his having such an
      incomparable bit of good luck, and not taking advantage of it."

          "I am rather in the dark still.  It is true that the
      description of this man tallies with your idea of the second party
      in this mystery.  But why should he come back to the house after
      leaving it?  That is not the way of criminals."

          "The ring, man, the ring:  that was what he came back for.  If
      we have no other way of catching him, we can always bait our line
      with the ring.  I shall have him, Doctor -- I'll lay you two to
      one that I have him.  I must thank you for it all.  I might not
      have gone but for you, and so have missed the finest study I ever
      came across: a study in scarlet, eh?  Why shouldn't we use a
      little art jargon.  There's the scarlet thread of murder running
      through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel
      it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.  And now for
      lunch, and then for Norman Neruda.  Her attack and her bowing are
      splendid.  What's that little thing of Chopin's she plays so
      magnificently:  Tra-la-la-lira-lira-lay."

          Leaning back in the cab, this amateur bloodhound carolled away
      like a lark while I meditated upon the many-sidedness of the human
      mind.

                         A STUDY IN SCARLET -- Part 1
                Chapter 5:  Our Advertisement Brings a Visitor

      Our morning's exertions had been too much for my weak health, and
      I was tired out in the afternoon.  After Holmes's departure for
      the concert, I lay down upon the sofa and endeavoured to get a
      couple of hours' sleep.  It was a useless attempt.  My mind had
      been too much excited by all that had occurred, and the strangest
      fancies and surmises crowded into it.  Every time that I closed my
      eyes I saw before me the distorted, baboon-like countenance of the
      murdered man.  So sinister was the impression which that face had
      produced upon me that I found it difficult to feel anything but
      gratitude for him who had removed its owner from the world.  If
      ever human features bespoke vice of the most malignant type, they
      were certainly those of Enoch J. Drebber, of Cleveland.  Still I
      recognized that justice must be done, and that the depravity of
      the victim was no condonement in the eyes of the law.

          The more I thought of it the more extraordinary did my
      companion's hypothesis, that the man had been poisoned, appear.  I
      remembered how he had sniffed his lips, and had no doubt that he
      had detected something which had given rise to the idea.  Then,
      again, if not poison, what had caused the man's death, since there
      was neither wound nor marks of strangulation?  But, on the other
      hand, whose blood was that which lay so thickly upon the floor?
      There were no signs of a struggle, nor had the victim any weapon
      with which he might have wounded an antagonist.  As long as all
      these questions were unsolved, I felt that sleep would be no easy
      matter, either for Holmes or myself.  His quiet, self-confident
      manner convinced me that he had already formed a theory which
      explained all the facts, though what it was I could not for an
      instant conjecture.

          He was very late in returning -- so late that I knew that the
      concert could not have detained him all the time.  Dinner was on
      the table before he appeared.

          "It was magnificent," he said, as he took his seat.  "Do you
      remember what Darwin says about music?  He claims that the power
      of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long
      before the power of speech was arrived at.  Perhaps that is why we
      are so subtly influenced by it.  There are vague memories in our
      souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its
      childhood."

          "That's rather a broad idea," I remarked.

          "One's ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to
      interpret Nature," he answered.  "What's the matter?  You're not
      looking quite yourself.  This Brixton Road affair has upset you."

          "To tell the truth, it has," I said.  "I ought to be more
      case-hardened after my Afghan experiences.  I saw my own comrades
      hacked to pieces at Maiwand without losing my nerve."

          "I can understand.  There is a mystery about this which
      stimulates the imagination; where there is no imagination there is
      no horror.  Have you seen the evening paper?"

          "No."

          "It gives a fairly good account of the affair.  It does not
      mention the fact that when the man was raised up a woman's wedding
      ring fell upon the floor.  It is just as well it does not."

          "Why?"

          "Look at this advertisement," he answered.  "I had one sent to
      every paper this morning immediately after the affair."

          He threw the paper across to me and I glanced at the place
      indicated.  It was the first announcement in the "Found" column.
      "In Brixton Road, this morning," it ran, "a plain gold wedding
      ring, found in the roadway between the White Hart Tavern and
      Holland Grove.  Apply Dr. Watson, 221B, Baker Street, between
      eight and nine this evening."

          "Excuse my using your name," he said.  "If I used my own, some
      of these dunderheads would recognize it, and want to meddle in the
      affair."

          "That is all right," I answered.  "But supposing anyone
      applies, I have no ring."

          "Oh, yes, you have," said he, handing me one.  "This will do
      very well.  It is almost a facsimile."

          "And who do you expect will answer this advertisement?"

          "Why, the man in the brown coat -- our florid friend with the
      square toes.  If he does not come himself, he will send an
      accomplice."

          "Would he not consider it as too dangerous?"

          "Not at all.  If my view of the case is correct, and I have
      every reason to believe that it is, this man would rather risk
      anything than lose the ring.  According to my notion he dropped it
      while stooping over Drebber's body, and did not miss it at the
      time.  After leaving the house he discovered his loss and hurried
      back, but found the police already in possession, owing to his own
      folly in leaving the candle burning.  He had to pretend to be
      drunk in order to allay the suspicions which might have been
      aroused by his appearance at the gate.  Now put yourself in that
      man's place.  On thinking the matter over, it must have occurred
      to him that it was possible that he had lost the ring in the road
      after leaving the house.  What would he do then?  He would eagerly
      look out for the evening papers in the hope of seeing it among the
      articles found.  His eye, of course, would light upon this.  He
      would be overjoyed.  Why should he fear a trap?  There would be no
      reason in his eyes why the finding of the ring should be connected
      with the murder.  He would come.  He will come.  You shall see him
      within an hour."

          "And then?" I asked.

          "Oh, you can leave me to deal with him then.  Have you any
      arms?"

          "I have my old service revolver and a few cartridges."

          "You had better clean it and load it.  He will be a desperate
      man; and though I shall take him unawares, it is as well to be
      ready for anything."

          I went to my bedroom and followed his advice.  When I returned
      with the pistol, the table had been cleared, and Holmes was
      engaged in his favourite occupation of scraping upon his violin.

          "The plot thickens," he said, as I entered; "I have just had
      an answer to my American telegram.  My view of the case is the
      correct one."

          "And that is --?" I asked eagerly.

          "My fiddle would be the better for new strings," he remarked.
      "Put your pistol in your pocket.  When the fellow comes, speak to
      him in an ordinary way.  Leave the rest to me.  Don't frighten him
      by looking at him too hard."

          "It is eight o'clock now," I said, glancing at my watch.

          "Yes.  He will probably be here in a few minutes.  Open the
      door slightly.  That will do.  Now put the key on the inside.
      Thank you!  This is a queer old book I picked up at a stall
      yesterday -- De Jure inter Gentes -- published in Latin at Liege
      in the Lowlands, in 1642.  Charles's head was still firm on his
      shoulders when this little brown-backed volume was struck off."

          "Who is the printer?"

          "Philippe de Croy, whoever he may have been.  On the flyleaf,
      in very faded ink, is written `Ex libris Guliolmi Whyte.'  I
      wonder who William Whyte was.  Some pragmatical
      seventeenth-century lawyer, I suppose.  His writing has a legal
      twist about it.  Here comes our man, I think."

          As he spoke there was a sharp ring at the bell.  Sherlock
      Holmes rose softly and moved his chair in the direction of the
      door.  We heard the servant pass along the hall, and the sharp
      click of the latch as she opened it.

          "Does Dr. Watson live here?" asked a clear but rather harsh
      voice.  We could not hear the servant's reply, but the door
      closed, and someone began to ascend the stairs.  The footfall was
      an uncertain and shuffling one.  A look of surprise passed over
      the face of my companion as he listened to it.  It came slowly
      along the passage, and there was a feeble tap at the door.

          "Come in," I cried.

          At my summons, instead of the man of violence whom we
      expected, a very old and wrinkled woman hobbled into the
      apartment.  She appeared to be dazzled by the sudden blaze of
      light, and after dropping a curtsey, she stood blinking at us with
      her bleared eyes and fumbling in her pocket with nervous, shaky
      fingers.  I glanced at my companion, and his face had assumed such
      a disconsolate expression that it was all I could do to keep my
      countenance.

          The old crone drew out an evening paper, and pointed at our
      advertisement.  "It's this as has brought me, good gentlemen," she
      said, dropping another curtsey; "a gold wedding ring in the
      Brixton Road.  It belongs to my girl Sally, as was married only
      this time twelvemonth, which her husband is steward aboard a Union
      boat, and what he'd say if he comes `ome and found her without her
      ring is more than I can think, he being short enough at the best
      o' times, but more especially when he has the drink.  If it please
      you, she went to the circus last night along with --"

          "Is that her ring?" I asked.

          "The Lord be thanked!" cried the old woman; "Sally will be a
      glad woman this night.  That's the ring."

          "And what may your address be?" I inquired, taking up a
      pencil.

          "13, Duncan Street, Houndsditch.  A weary way from here."

          "The Brixton Road does not lie between any circus and
      Houndsditch," said Sherlock Holmes sharply.

          The old woman faced round and looked keenly at him from her
      little red-rimmed eyes.  "The gentleman asked me for my address,"
      she said.  "Sally lives in lodgings at 3, Mayfield Place,
      Peckham."

          "And your name is --?"

          "My name is Sawyer -- hers is Dennis, which Tom Dennis married
      her -- and a smart, clean lad, too, as long as he's at sea, and no
      steward in the company more thought of; but when on shore, what
      with the women and what with liquor shops --"

          "Here is your ring, Mrs. Sawyer," I interrupted, in obedience
      to a sign from my companion; "it clearly belongs to your daughter,
      and I am glad to be able to restore it to the rightful owner."

          With many mumbled blessings and protestations of gratitude the
      old crone packed it away in her pocket, and shuffled off down the
      stairs.  Sherlock Holmes sprang to his feet the moment that she
      was gone and rushed into his room.  He returned in a few seconds
      enveloped in an ulster and a cravat.  "I'll follow her," he said,
      hurriedly; "she must be an accomplice, and will lead me to him.
      Wait up for me."  The hall door had hardly slammed behind our
      visitor before Holmes had descended the stair.  Looking through
      the window I could see her walking feebly along the other side,
      while her pursuer dogged her some little distance behind.  "Either
      his whole theory is incorrect," I thought to myself, "or else he
      will be led now to the heart of the mystery."  There was no need
      for him to ask me to wait up for him, for I felt that sleep was
      impossible until I heard the result of his adventure.

          It was close upon nine when he set out.  I had no idea how
      long he might be, but I sat stolidly puffing at my pipe and
      skipping over the pages of Henri Murger's Vie de Boheme.  Ten
      o'clock passed, and I heard the footsteps of the maid as she
      pattered off to bed.  Eleven, and the more stately tread of the
      landlady passed my door, bound for the same destination.  It was
      close upon twelve before I heard the sharp sound of his latchkey.
      The instant he entered I saw by his face that he had not been
      successful.  Amusement and chagrin seemed to be struggling for the
      mastery, until the former suddenly carried the day, and he burst
      into a hearty laugh.

          "I wouldn't have the Scotland Yarders know it for the world,"
      he cried, dropping into his chair; "I have chaffed them so much
      that they would never have let me hear the end of it.  I can
      afford to laugh, because I know that I will be even with them in
      the long run."

          "What is it then?" I asked.

          "Oh, I don't mind telling a story against myself.  That
      creature had gone a little way when she began to limp and show
      every sign of being footsore.  Presently she came to a halt, and
      hailed a four-wheeler which was passing.  I managed to be close to
      her so as to hear the address, but I need not have been so
      anxious, for she sang it out loud enough to be heard at the other
      side of the street, `Drive to 13, Duncan Street, Houndsditch,' she
      cried.  This begins to look genuine, I thought, and having seen
      her safely inside, I perched myself behind.  That's an art which
      every detective should be an expert at.  Well, away we rattled,
      and never drew rein until we reached the street in question.  I
      hopped off before we came to the door, and strolled down the
      street in an easy, lounging way.  I saw the cab pull up.  The
      driver jumped down, and I saw him open the door and stand
      expectantly.  Nothing came out though.  When I reached him, he was
      groping about frantically in the empty cab, and giving vent to the
      finest assorted collection of oaths that ever I listened to.
      There was no sign or trace of his passenger, and I fear it will be
      some time before he gets his fare.  On inquiring at Number 13 we
      found that the house belonged to a respectable paperhanger, named
      Keswick, and that no one of the name either of Sawyer or Dennis
      had ever been heard of there."

          "You don't mean to say," I cried, in amazement, "that that
      tottering, feeble old woman was able to get out of the cab while
      it was in motion, without either you or the driver seeing her?"

          "Old woman be damned!" said Sherlock Holmes, sharply.  "We
      were the old women to be so taken in.  It must have been a young
      man, and an active one, too, besides being an incomparable actor.
      The get-up was inimitable.  He saw that he was followed, no doubt,
      and used this means of giving me the slip.  It shows that the man
      we are after is not as lonely as I imagined he was, but has
      friends who are ready to risk something for him.  Now, Doctor, you
      are looking done-up.  Take my advice and turn in."

          I was certainly feeling very weary, so I obeyed his
      injunction.  I left Holmes seated in front of the smouldering
      fire, and long into the watches of the night I heard the low
      melancholy wailings of his violin, and knew that he was still
      pondering over the strange problem which he had set himself to
      unravel.

                         A STUDY IN SCARLET -- Part 1
                Chapter 6:  Tobias Gregson Shows What He Can Do

      The papers next day were full of the "Brixton Mystery," as they
      termed it.  Each had a long account of the affair, and some had
      leaders upon it in addition.  There was some information in them
      which was new to me.  I still retain in my scrapbook numerous
      clippings and extracts bearing upon the case.  Here is a
      condensation of a few of them:

          The Daily Telegraph remarked that in the history of crime
      there had seldom been a tragedy which presented stranger features.
      The German name of the victim, the absence of all other motive,
      and the sinister inscription on the wall, all pointed to its
      perpetration by political refugees and revolutionists.  The
      Socialists had many branches in America, and the deceased had, no
      doubt, infringed their unwritten laws, and been tracked down by
      them.  After alluding airily to the Vehmgericht, aqua tofana,
      Carbonari, the Marchioness de Brinvilliers, the Darwinian theory,
      the principles of Malthus, and the Ratcliff Highway murders, the
      article concluded by admonishing the government and advocating a
      closer watch over foreigners in England.

          The Standard commented upon the fact that lawless outrages of
      the sort usually occurred under a Liberal administration.  They
      arose from the unsettling of the minds of the masses, and the
      consequent weakening of all authority.  The deceased was an
      American gentleman who had been residing for some weeks in the
      metropolis.  He had stayed at the boarding-house of Madame
      Charpentier, in Torquay Terrace, Camberwell.  He was accompanied
      in his travels by his private secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson.
      The two bade adieu to their landlady upon Tuesday, the 4th inst.,
      and departed to Euston Station with the avowed intention of
      catching the Liverpool express.  They were afterwards seen
      together upon the platform.  Nothing more is known of them until
      Mr. Drebber's body was, as recorded, discovered in an empty house
      in the Brixton Road, many miles from Euston.  How he came there,
      or how he met his fate, are questions which are still involved in
      mystery.  Nothing is known of the whereabouts of Stangerson.  We
      are glad to learn that Mr. Lestrade and Mr. Gregson, of Scotland
      Yard, are both engaged upon the case, and it is confidently
      anticipated that these well-known officers will speedily throw
      light upon the matter.

          The Daily News observed that there was no doubt as to the
      crime being a political one.  The despotism and hatred of
      Liberalism which animated the Continental governments had had the
      effect of driving to our shores a number of men who might have
      made excellent citizens were they not soured by the recollection
      of all that they had undergone.  Among these men there was a
      stringent code of honour, any infringement of which was punished
      by death.  Every effort should be made to find the secretary,
      Stangerson, and to ascertain some particulars of the habits of the
      deceased.  A great step had been gained by the discovery of the
      address of the house at which he had boarded -- a result which was
      entirely due to the acuteness and energy of Mr. Gregson of
      Scotland Yard.

          Sherlock Holmes and I read these notices over together at
      breakfast, and they appeared to afford him considerable amusement.

          "I told you that, whatever happened, Lestrade and Gregson
      would be sure to score."

          "That depends on how it turns out."

          "Oh, bless you, it doesn't matter in the least.  If the man is
      caught, it will be on account of their exertions; if he escapes,
      it will be in spite of their exertions.  It's heads I win and
      tails you lose.  Whatever they do, they will have followers.  `Un
      sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l'admire.'"

          "What on earth is this?" I cried, for at this moment there
      came the pattering of many steps in the hall and on the stairs,
      accompanied by audible expressions of disgust upon the part of our
      landlady.

          "It's the Baker Street division of the detective police
      force," said my companion gravely; and as he spoke there rushed
      into the room half a dozen of the dirtiest and most ragged street
      Arabs that ever I clapped eyes on.

          "'Tention!" cried Holmes, in a sharp tone, and the six dirty
      little scoundrels stood in a line like so many disreputable
      statuettes.  "In future you shall send up Wiggins alone to report,
      and the rest of you must wait in the street.  Have you found it,
      Wiggins?"

          "No, sir, we hain't," said one of the youths.

          "I hardly expected you would.  You must keep on until you do.
      Here are your wages."  He handed each of them a shilling.  "Now,
      off you go, and come back with a better report next time."

          He waved his hand, and they scampered away downstairs like so
      many rats, and we heard their shrill voices next moment in the
      street.

          "There's more work to be got out of one of those little
      beggars than out of a dozen of the force," Holmes remarked.  "The
      mere sight of an official-looking person seals men's lips.  These
      youngsters, however, go everywhere and hear everything.  They are
      as sharp as needles, too; all they want is organization."

          "Is it on this Brixton case that you are employing them?" I
      asked.

          "Yes; there is a point which I wish to ascertain.  It is
      merely a matter of time.  Hullo! we are going to hear some news
      now with a vengeance!  Here is Gregson coming down the road with
      beatitude written upon every feature of his face.  Bound for us, I
      know.  Yes, he is stopping.  There he is!"

          There was a violent peal at the bell, and in a few seconds the
      fair-haired detective came up the stairs, three steps at a time,
      and burst into our sitting-room.

          "My dear fellow," he cried, wringing Holmes's unresponsive
      hand, "congratulate me!  I have made the whole thing as clear as
      day."

          A shade of anxiety seemed to me to cross my companion's
      expressive face.

          "Do you mean that you are on the right track?" he asked.

          "The right track!  Why, sir, we have the man under lock and
      key."

          "And his name is?"

          "Arthur Charpentier, sub-lieutenant in Her Majesty's navy,"
      cried Gregson pompously rubbing his fat hands and inflating his
      chest.

          Sherlock Holmes gave a sigh of relief and relaxed into a
      smile.

          "Take a seat, and try one of these cigars," he said.  "We are
      anxious to know how you managed it.  Will you have some whisky and
      water?"

          I don't mind if I do," the detective answered.  "The
      tremendous exertions which I have gone through during the last day
      or two have worn me out.  Not so much bodily exertion, you
      understand, as the strain upon the mind.  You will appreciate
      that, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, for we are both brain-workers."

          "You do me too much honour," said Holmes, gravely.  "Let us
      hear how you arrived at this most gratifying result."

          The detective seated himself in the armchair, and puffed
      complacently at his cigar.  Then suddenly he slapped his thigh in
      a paroxysm of amusement.

          "The fun of it is," he cried, "that that fool Lestrade, who
      thinks himself so smart, has gone off upon the wrong track
      altogether.  He is after the secretary Stangerson, who had no more
      to do with the crime than the babe unborn.  I have no doubt that
      he has caught him by this time."

          The idea tickled Gregson so much that he laughed until he
      choked.

          "And how did you get your clue?"

          "Ah, I'll tell you all about it.  Of course, Dr. Watson, this
      is strictly between ourselves.  The first difficulty which we had
      to contend with was the finding of this American's antecedents.
      Some people would have waited until their advertisements were
      answered, or until parties came forward and volunteered
      information.  That is not Tobias Gregson's way of going to work.
      You remember the hat beside the dead man?"

          "Yes," said Holmes; "by John Underwood and Sons, 129,
      Camberwell Road."

          Gregson looked quite crestfallen.

          "I had no idea that you noticed that," he said.  "Have you
      been there?"

          "No."

          "Ha!" cried Gregson, in a relieved voice; "you should never
      neglect a chance, however small it may seem."

          "To a great mind, nothing is little," remarked Holmes,
      sententiously.

          "Well, I went to Underwood, and asked him if he had sold a hat
      of that size and description.  He looked over his books, and came
      on it at once.  He had sent the hat to a Mr. Drebber, residing at
      Charpentier's Boarding Establishment, Torquay Terrace.  Thus I got
      at his address."

          "Smart -- very smart!" murmured Sherlock Holmes.

          "I next called upon Madame Charpentier," continued the
      detective.  "I found her very pale and distressed.  Her daughter
      was in the room, too -- an uncommonly fine girl she is, too; she
      was looking red about the eyes and her lips trembled as I spoke to
      her.  That didn't escape my notice.  I began to smell a rat.  You
      know the feeling, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, when you come upon the
      right scent -- a kind of thrill in your nerves.  `Have you heard
      of the mysterious death of your late boarder Mr. Enoch J. Drebber,
      of Cleveland?' I asked.

          "The mother nodded.  She didn't seem able to get out a word.
      The daughter burst into tears.  I felt more than ever that these
      people knew something of the matter.

          "`At what o'clock did Mr. Drebber leave your house for the
      train?' I asked.

          "`At eight o'clock,' she said, gulping in her throat to keep
      down her agitation.  `His secretary, Mr. Stangerson, said that
      there were two trains -- one at 9:15 and one at 11.  He was to
      catch the first.'

          "`And was that the last which you saw of him?'

          "A terrible change came over the woman's face as I asked the
      question.  Her features turned perfectly livid.  It was some
      seconds before she could get out the single word `Yes' -- and when
      it did come it was in a husky, unnatural tone.

          "There was silence for a moment, and then the daughter spoke
      in a calm, clear voice.

          "`No good can ever come of falsehood, mother,' she said.  `Let
      us be frank with this gentleman.  We did see Mr. Drebber again.'

          "`God forgive you!' cried Madame Charpentier, throwing up her
      hands and sinking back in her chair.  `You have murdered your
      brother.'

          "`Arthur would rather that we spoke the truth,' the girl
      answered firmly.

          "`You had best tell me all about it now,' I said.
      `Half-confidences are worse than none.  Besides, you do not know
      how much we know of it.'

          "`On your head be it, Alice!' cried her mother; and then,
      turning to me, `I will tell you all, sir.  Do not imagine that my
      agitation on behalf of my son arises from any fear lest he should
      have had a hand in this terrible affair.  He is utterly innocent
      of it.  My dread is, however, that in your eyes and in the eyes of
      others he may appear to be compromised.  That, however, is surely
      impossible.  His high character, his profession, his antecedents
      would all forbid it.'

          "`Your best way is to make a clean breast of the facts,' I
      answered.  `Depend upon it, if your son is innocent he will be
      none the worse.'

          "`Perhaps, Alice, you had better leave us together,' she said,
      and her daughter withdrew.  `Now, sir,' she continued, `I had no
      intention of telling you all this, but since my poor daughter has
      disclosed it I have no alternative.  Having once decided to speak,
      I will tell you all without omitting any particular.'

          "`It is your wisest course,' said I.

          "`Mr. Drebber has been with us nearly three weeks.  He and his
      secretary, Mr. Stangerson, had been travelling on the Continent.
      I noticed a Copenhagen label upon each of their trunks, showing
      that that had been their last stopping place.  Stangerson was a
      quiet, reserved man, but his employer, I am sorry to say, was far
      otherwise.  He was coarse in his habits and brutish in his ways.
      The very night of his arrival he became very much the worse for
      drink, and, indeed, after twelve o'clock in the day he could
      hardly ever be said to be sober.  His manners towards the
      maid-servants were disgustingly free and familiar.  Worst of all,
      he speedily assumed the same attitude towards my daughter, Alice,
      and spoke to her more than once in a way which, fortunately, she
      is too innocent to understand.  On one occasion he actually seized
      her in his arms and embraced her -- an outrage which caused his
      own secretary to reproach him for his unmanly conduct.'

          "`But why did you stand all this?' I asked.  `I suppose that
      you can get rid of your boarders when you wish.'

          "Mrs. Charpentier blushed at my pertinent question.  `Would to
      God that I had given him notice on the very day that he came,' she
      said.  `But it was a sore temptation.  They were paying a pound a
      day each -- fourteen pounds a week, and this is the slack season.
      I am a widow, and my boy in the Navy has cost me much.  I grudged
      to lose the money.  I acted for the best.  This last was too much,
      however, and I gave him notice to leave on account of it.  `That
      was the reason of his going.'

          "`Well?'

          "`My heart grew light when I saw him drive away.  My son is on
      leave just now, but I did not tell him anything of all this, for
      his temper is violent, and he is passionately fond of his sister.
      When I closed the door behind them a load seemed to be lifted from
      my mind.  Alas, in less than an hour there was a ring at the bell,
      and I learned that Mr. Drebber had returned.  He was much excited,
      and evidently the worse for drink.  He forced his way into the
      room, where I was sitting with my daughter, and made some
      incoherent remark about having missed his train.  He then turned
      to Alice, and before my very face, proposed to her that she should
      fly with him.  "You are of age," he said, "and there is no law to
      stop you.  I have money enough and to spare.  Never mind the old
      girl here, but come along with me now straight away.  You shall
      live like a princess."  Poor Alice was so frightened that she
      shrunk away from him, but he caught her by the wrist and
      endeavoured to draw her towards the door.  I screamed, and at that
      moment my son Arthur came into the room.  What happened then I do
      not know.  I heard oaths and the confused sounds of a scuffle.  I
      was too terrified to raise my head.  When I did look up I saw
      Arthur standing in the doorway laughing, with a stick in his hand.
      "I don't think that fine fellow will trouble us again," he said.
      "I will just go after him and see what he does with himself."
      With those words he took his hat and started off down the street.
      The next morning we heard of Mr. Drebber's mysterious death.'

          "This statement came from Mrs. Charpentier's lips with many
      gasps and pauses.  At times she spoke so low that I could hardly
      catch the words.  I made shorthand notes of all that she said,
      however, so that there should be no possibility of a mistake."

          "It's quite exciting," said Sherlock Holmes, with a yawn.
      "What happened next?"

          "When Mrs. Charpentier paused," the detective continued, "I
      saw that the whole case hung upon one point.  Fixing her with my
      eye in a way which I always found effective with women, I asked
      her at what hour her son returned.

          "`I do not know,' she answered.

          "`Not know?'

          "`No; he has a latchkey, and he let himself in.'

          "`After you went to bed?'

          "`Yes.'

          "`When did you go to bed?'

          "`About eleven.'

          "`So your son was gone at least two hours?'

          "`Yes.'

          "`Possibly four or five?'

          "`Yes.'

          "`What was he doing during that time?'

          "`I do not know,' she answered, turning white to her very
      lips.

          "Of course after that there was nothing more to be done.  I
      found out where Lieutenant Charpentier was, took two officers with
      me, and arrested him.  When I touched him on the shoulder and
      warned him to come quietly with us, he answered us as bold as
      brass, `I suppose you are arresting me for being concerned in the
      death of that scoundrel Drebber,' he said.  We had said nothing to
      him about it, so that his alluding to it had a most suspicious
      aspect."

          "Very," said Holmes.

          "He still carried the heavy stick which the mother described
      him as having with him when he followed Drebber.  It was a stout
      oak cudgel."

          "What is your theory, then?"

          "Well, my theory is that he followed Drebber as far as the
      Brixton Road.  When there, a fresh altercation arose between them,
      in the course of which Drebber received a blow from the stick, in
      the pit of the stomach perhaps, which killed him without leaving
      any mark.  The night was so wet that no one was about, so
      Charpentier dragged the body of his victim into the empty house.
      As to the candle, and the blood, and the writing on the wall, and
      the ring, they may all be so many tricks to throw the police on to
      the wrong scent."

          "Well done!" said Holmes in an encouraging voice.  "Really,
      Gregson, you are getting along.  We shall make something of you
      yet."

          "I flatter myself that I have managed it rather neatly," the
      detective answered, proudly.  "The young man volunteered a
      statement, in which he said that after following Drebber some
      time, the latter perceived him, and took a cab in order to get
      away from him.  On his way home he met an old shipmate, and took a
      long walk with him.  On being asked where this old shipmate lived,
      he was unable to give any satisfactory reply.  I think the whole
      case fits together uncommonly well.  What amuses me is to think of
      Lestrade, who had started off upon the wrong scent.  I am afraid
      he won't make much of it.  Why, by Jove, here's the very man
      himself!"

          It was indeed Lestrade, who had ascended the stairs while we
      were talking, and who now entered the room.  The assurance and
      jauntiness which generally marked his demeanour and dress were,
      however, wanting.  His face was disturbed and troubled, while his
      clothes were disarranged and untidy.  He had evidently come with
      the intention of consulting with Sherlock Holmes, for on
      perceiving his colleague he appeared to be embarrassed and put
      out.  He stood in the centre of the room, fumbling nervously with
      his hat and uncertain what to do.  "This is a most extraordinary
      case," he said at last -- "a most incomprehensible affair."

          "Ah, you find it so, Mr. Lestrade!" cried Gregson,
      triumphantly.  "I thought you would come to that conclusion.  Have
      you managed to find the secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson?"

          "The secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson," said Lestrade,
      gravely, "was murdered at Halliday's Private Hotel about six
      o'clock this morning."


                         A STUDY IN SCARLET -- Part 1
                       Chapter 7:  Light in the Darkness

      The intelligence with which Lestrade greeted us was so momentous
      and so unexpected that we were all three fairly dumfounded.
      Gregson sprang out of his chair and upset the remainder of his
      whisky and water.  I stared in silence at Sherlock Holmes, whose
      lips were compressed and his brows drawn down over his eyes.

          "Stangerson too!" he muttered.  "The plot thickens."

          "It was quite thick enough before," grumbled Lestrade, taking
      a chair.  "I seem to have dropped into a sort of council of war."

          "Are you -- are you sure of this piece of intelligence?"
      stammered Gregson.

          "I have just come from his room," said Lestrade.  "I was the
      first to discover what had occurred."

          "We have been hearing Gregson's view of the matter," Holmes
      observed.  "Would you mind letting us know what you have seen and
      done?"

          "I have no objection," Lestrade answered, seating himself.  "I
      freely confess that I was of the opinion that Stangerson was
      concerned in the death of Drebber.  This fresh development has
      shown me that I was completely mistaken.  Full of the one idea, I
      set myself to find out what had become of the secretary.  They had
      been seen together at Euston Station about half-past eight on the
      evening of the 3rd.  At two in the morning Drebber had been found
      in the Brixton Road.  The question which confronted me was to find
      out how Stangerson had been employed between 8:30 and the time of
      the crime, and what had become of him afterwards.  I telegraphed
      to Liverpool, giving a description of the man, and warning them to
      keep a watch upon the American boats.  I then set to work calling
      upon all the hotels and lodging-houses in the vicinity of Euston.
      You see, I argued that if Drebber and his companion had become
      separated, the natural course for the latter would be to put up
      somewhere in the vicinity for the night, and then to hang about
      the station again next morning."

          "They would be likely to agree on some meeting-place
      beforehand," remarked Holmes.

          "So it proved.  I spent the whole of yesterday evening in
      making inquiries entirely without avail.  This morning I began
      very early, and at eight o'clock I reached Halliday's Private
      Hotel, in Little George Street.  On my inquiry as to whether a Mr.
      Stangerson was living there, they at once answered me in the
      affirmative.

          "`No doubt you are the gentleman whom he was expecting,' they
      said.  `He has been waiting for a gentleman for two days.'

          "`Where is he now?' I asked.

          "`He is upstairs in bed.  He wished to be called at nine.'

          "`I will go up and see him at once,' I said.

          "It seemed to me that my sudden appearance might shake his
      nerves and lead him to say something unguarded.  The boots
      volunteered to show me the room: it was on the second floor, and
      there was a small corridor leading up to it.  The boots pointed
      out the door to me, and was about to go downstairs again when I
      saw something that made me feel sickish, in spite of my twenty
      years' experience.  From under the door there curled a little red
      ribbon of blood, which had meandered across the passage and formed
      a little pool along the skirting at the other side.  I gave a cry,
      which brought the boots back.  He nearly fainted when he saw it.
      The door was locked on the inside, but we put our shoulders to it,
      and knocked it in.  The window of the room was open, and beside
      the window, all huddled up, lay the body of a man in his
      nightdress.  He was quite dead, and had been for some time, for
      his limbs were rigid and cold.  When we turned him over, the boots
      recognized him at once as being the same gentleman who had engaged
      the room under the name of Joseph Stangerson.  The cause of death
      was a deep stab in the left side, which must have penetrated the
      heart.  And now comes the strangest part of the affair.  What do
      you suppose was above the murdered man?"

          I felt a creeping of the flesh, and a presentiment of coming
      horror, even before Sherlock Holmes answered.

          "The word RACHE, written in letters of blood," he said.

          "That was it," said Lestrade, in an awestruck voice; and we
      were all silent for a while.

          There was something so methodical and so incomprehensible
      about the deeds of this unknown assassin, that it imparted a fresh
      ghastliness to his crimes.  My nerves, which were steady enough on
      the field of battle, tingled as I thought of it.

          "The man was seen," continued Lestrade.  "A milk boy, passing
      on his way to the dairy, happened to walk down the lane which
      leads from the mews at the back of the hotel.  He noticed that a
      ladder, which usually lay there, was raised against one of the
      windows of the second floor, which was wide open.  After passing,
      he looked back and saw a man descend the ladder.  He came down so
      quietly and openly that the boy imagined him to be some carpenter
      or joiner at work in the hotel.  He took no particular notice of
      him, beyond thinking in his own mind that it was early for him to
      be at work.  He has an impression that the man was tall, had a
      reddish face, and was dressed in a long, brownish coat.  He must
      have stayed in the room some little time after the murder, for we
      found bloodstained water in the basin, where he had washed his
      hands, and marks on the sheets where he had deliberately wiped his
      knife."

          I glanced at Holmes on hearing the description of the murderer
      which tallied so exactly with his own.  There was, however, no
      trace of exultation or satisfaction upon his face.

          "Did you find nothing in the room which could furnish a clue
      to the murderer?" he asked.

          "Nothing.  Stangerson had Drebber's purse in his pocket, but
      it seems that this was usual, as he did all the paying.  There was
      eighty-odd pounds in it, but nothing had been taken.  Whatever the
      motives of these extraordinary crimes, robbery is certainly not
      one of them.  There were no papers or memoranda in the murdered
      man's pocket, except a single telegram, dated from Cleveland about
      a month ago, and containing the words, `J. H. is in Europe.'
      There was no name appended to this message."

          "And there was nothing else?" Holmes asked.

          "Nothing of any importance.  The man's novel, with which he
      had read himself to sleep, was lying upon the bed, and his pipe
      was on a chair beside him.  There was a glass of water on the
      table, and on the window-sill a small chip ointment box containing
      a couple of pills."

          Sherlock Holmes sprang from his chair with an exclamation of
      delight.

          "The last link," he cried, exultantly.  "My case is complete."

          The two detectives stared at him in amazement.

          "I have now in my hands," my companion said, confidently, "all
      the threads which have formed such a tangle.  There are, of
      course, details to be filled in, but I am as certain of all the
      main facts, from the time that Drebber parted from Stangerson at
      the station, up to the discovery of the body of the latter, as if
      I had seen them with my own eyes.  I will give you a proof of my
      knowledge.  Could you lay your hand upon those pills?"

          "I have them," said Lestrade, producing a small white box; "I
      took them and the purse and the telegram, intending to have them
      put in a place of safety at the police station.  It was the merest
      chance my taking these pills, for I am bound to say that I do not
      attach any importance to them."

          "Give them here," said Holmes.  "Now, Doctor," turning to me,
      "are those ordinary pills?"

          They certainly were not.  They were of a pearly gray colour,
      small, round, and almost transparent against the light.  "From
      their lightness and transparency, I should imagine that they are
      soluble in water," I remarked.

          "Precisely so," answered Holmes.  "Now would you mind going
      down and fetching that poor little devil of a terrier which has
      been bad so long, and which the landlady wanted you to put out of
      its pain yesterday?"

          I went downstairs and carried the dog upstairs in my arms.
      Its laboured breathing and glazing eye showed that it was not far
      from its end.  Indeed, its snow-white muzzle proclaimed that it
      had already exceeded the usual term of canine existence.  I placed
      it upon a cushion on the rug.

          "I will now cut one of these pills in two," said Holmes, and
      drawing his penknife he suited the action to the word.  "One half
      we return into the box for future purposes.  The other half I will
      place in this wineglass, in which is a teaspoonful of water.  You
      perceive that our friend, the doctor, is right, and that it
      readily dissolves."

          "This may be very interesting," said Lestrade, in the injured
      tone of one who suspects that he is being laughed at; "I cannot
      see, however, what it has to do with the death of Mr. Joseph
      Stangerson."

          "Patience, my friend, patience!  You will find in time that it
      has everything to do with it.  I shall now add a little milk to
      make the mixture palatable, and on presenting it to the dog we
      find that he laps it up readily enough."

          As he spoke he turned the contents of the wineglass into a
      saucer and placed it in front of the terrier, who speedily licked
      it dry.  Sherlock Holmes's earnest demeanour had so far convinced
      us that we all sat in silence, watching the animal intently, and
      expecting some startling effect.  None such appeared, however.
      The dog continued to lie stretched upon the cushion, breathing in
      a laboured way, but apparently neither the better nor the worse
      for its draught.

          Holmes had taken out his watch, and as minute followed minute
      without result, an expression of the utmost chagrin and
      disappointment appeared upon his features.  He gnawed his lip,
      drummed his fingers upon the table, and showed every other symptom
      of acute impatience.  So great was his emotion that I felt
      sincerely sorry for him, while the two detectives smiled
      derisively, by no means displeased at this check which he had met.

          "It can't be a coincidence," he cried, at last springing from
      his chair and pacing wildly up and down the room; "it is
      impossible that it should be a mere coincidence.  The very pills
      which I suspected in the case of Drebber are actually found after
      the death of Stangerson.  And yet they are inert.  What can it
      mean?  Surely my whole chain of reasoning cannot have been false.
      It is impossible!  And yet this wretched dog is none the worse.
      Ah, I have it!  I have it!"  With a perfect shriek of delight he
      rushed to the box, cut the other pill in two, dissolved it, added
      milk, and presented it to the terrier.  The unfortunate creature's
      tongue seemed hardly to have been moistened in it before it gave a
      convulsive shiver in every limb, and lay as rigid and lifeless as
      if it had been struck by lightning.

          Sherlock Holmes drew a long breath, and wiped the perspiration
      from his forehead.  "I should have more faith," he said; "I ought
      to know by this time that when a fact appears to be opposed to a
      long train of deductions, it invariably proves to be capable of
      bearing some other interpretation.  Of the two pills in that box,
      one was of the most deadly poison, and the other was entirely
      harmless.  I ought to have known that before ever I saw the box at
      all."

          This last statement appeared to me to be so startling that I
      could hardly believe that he was in his sober senses.  There was
      the dead dog, however, to prove that his conjecture had been
      correct.  It seemed to me that the mists in my own mind were
      gradually clearing away, and I began to have a dim, vague
      perception of the truth.

          "All this seems strange to you," continued Holmes, "because
      you failed at the beginning of the inquiry to grasp the importance
      of the single real clue which was presented to you.  I had the
      good fortune to seize upon that, and everything which has occurred
      since then has served to confirm my original supposition, and,
      indeed, was the logical sequence of it.  Hence things which have
      perplexed you and made the case more obscure have served to
      enlighten me and to strengthen my conclusions.  It is a mistake to
      confound strangeness with mystery.  The most commonplace crime is
      often the most mysterious, because it presents no new or special
      features from which deductions may be drawn.  This murder would
      have been infinitely more difficult to unravel had the body of the
      victim been simply found lying in the roadway without any of those
      outre and sensational accompaniments which have rendered it
      remarkable.  These strange details, far from making the case more
      difficult, have really had the effect of making it less so."

          Mr. Gregson, who had listened to this address with
      considerable impatience, could contain himself no longer.  "Look
      here, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," he said, "we are all ready to
      acknowledge that you are a smart man, and that you have your own
      methods of working.  We want something more than mere theory and
      preaching now, though.  It is a case of taking the man.  I have
      made my case out, and it seems I was wrong.  Young Charpentier
      could not have been engaged in this second affair.  Lestrade went
      after his man, Stangerson, and it appears that he was wrong too.
      You have thrown out hints here, and hints there, and seem to know
      more than we do, but the time has come when we feel that we have a
      right to ask you straight how much you do know of the business.
      Can you name the man who did it?"

          "I cannot help feeling that Gregson is right, sir," remarked
      Lestrade.  "We have both tried, and we have both failed.  You have
      remarked more than once since I have been in the room that you had
      all the evidence which you require.  Surely you will not withhold
      it any longer."

          "Any delay in arresting the assassin," I observed, "might give
      him time to perpetrate some fresh atrocity."

          Thus pressed by us all, Holmes showed signs of irresolution.
      He continued to walk up and down the room with his head sunk on
      his chest and his brows drawn down, as was his habit when lost in
      thought.

          "There will be no more murders," he said at last, stopping
      abruptly and facing us.  "You can put that consideration out of
      the question.  You have asked me if I know the name of the
      assassin.  I do.  The mere knowing of his name is a small thing,
      however, compared with the power of laying our hands upon him.
      This I expect very shortly to do.  I have good hopes of managing
      it through my own arrangements; but it is a thing which needs
      delicate handling, for we have a shrewd and desperate man to deal
      with, who is supported, as I have had occasion to prove, by
      another who is as clever as himself.  As long as this man has no
      idea that anyone can have a clue there is some chance of securing
      him; but if he had the slightest suspicion, he would change his
      name, and vanish in an instant among the four million inhabitants
      of this great city.  Without meaning to hurt either of your
      feelings, I am bound to say that I consider these men to be more
      than a match for the official force, and that is why I have not
      asked your assistance.  If I fail, I shall, of course, incur all
      the blame due to this omission; but that I am prepared for.  At
      present I am ready to promise that the instant that I can
      communicate with you without endangering my own combinations, I
      shall do so."

          Gregson and Lestrade seemed to be far from satisfied by this
      assurance, or by the depreciating allusion to the detective
      police.  The former had flushed up to the roots of his flaxen
      hair, while the other's beady eyes glistened with curiosity and
      resentment.  Neither of them had time to speak, however, before
      there was a tap at the door, and the spokesman of the street
      Arabs, young Wiggins, introduced his insignificant and unsavoury
      person.

          "Please, sir," he said, touching his forelock, "I have the cab
      downstairs."

          "Good boy, said Holmes, blandly.  "Why don't you introduce
      this pattern at Scotland Yard?" he continued, taking a pair of
      steel handcuffs from a drawer.  "See how beautifully the spring
      works.  They fasten in an instant."

          "The old pattern is good enough," remarked Lestrade, "if we
      can only find the man to put them on."

          "Very good, very good," said Holmes, smiling.  "The cabman may
      as well help me with my boxes.  Just ask him to step up, Wiggins."

          I was surprised to find my companion speaking as though he
      were about to set out on a journey, since he had not said anything
      to me about it.  There was a small portmanteau in the room, and
      this he pulled out and began to strap.  He was busily engaged at
      it when the cabman entered the room.

          "Just give me a help with this buckle, cabman," he said,
      kneeling over his task, and never turning his head.

          The fellow came forward with a somewhat sullen, defiant air,
      and put down his hands to assist.  At that instant there was a
      sharp click, the jangling of metal, and Sherlock Holmes sprang to
      his feet again.

          "Gentlemen," he cried, with flashing eyes, "let me introduce
      you to Mr. Jefferson Hope, the murderer of Enoch Drebber and of
      Joseph Stangerson!"

          The whole thing occurred in a moment -- so quickly that I had
      no time to realize it.  I have a vivid recollection of that
      instant, of Holmes's triumphant expression and the ring of his
      voice, of the cabman's dazed, savage face, as he glared at the
      glittering handcuffs, which had appeared as if by magic upon his
      wrists.  For a second or two we might have been a group of
      statues.  Then with an inarticulate roar of fury, the prisoner
      wrenched himself free from Holmes's grasp, and hurled himself
      through the window.  Woodwork and glass gave way before him; but
      before he got quite through, Gregson, Lestrade, and Holmes sprang
      upon him like so many staghounds.  He was dragged back into the
      room, and then commenced a terrific conflict.  So powerful and so
      fierce was he that the four of us were shaken off again and again.
      He appeared to have the convulsive strength of a man in an
      epileptic fit.  His face and hands were terribly mangled by his
      passage through the glass, but loss of blood had no effect in
      diminishing his resistance.  It was not until Lestrade succeeded
      in getting his hand inside his neckcloth and half-strangling him
      that we made him realize that his struggles were of no avail; and
      even then we felt no security until we had pinioned his feet as
      well as his hands.  That done, we rose to our feet breathless and
      panting.

          "We have his cab," said Sherlock Holmes.  "It will serve to
      take him to Scotland Yard.  And now, gentlemen," he continued,
      with a pleasant smile, "we have reached the end of our little
      mystery.  You are very welcome to put any questions that you like
      to me now, and there is no danger that I will refuse to answer
      them."


                         A STUDY IN SCARLET -- Part 2
                     Chapter 1:  On the Great Alkali Plain

      In the central portion of the great North American Continent there
      lies an arid and repulsive desert, which for many a long year
      served as a barrier against the advance of civilization.  From the
      Sierra Nevada to Nebraska, and from the Yellowstone River in the
      north to the Colorado upon the south, is a region of desolation
      and silence.  Nor is Nature always in one mood throughout this
      grim district.  It comprises snow-capped and lofty mountains, and
      dark and gloomy valleys.  There are swift-flowing rivers which
      dash through jagged canons; and there are enormous plains, which
      in winter are white with snow, and in summer are gray with the
      saline alkali dust.  They all preserve, however, the common
      characteristics of barrenness, inhospitality, and misery.

          There are no inhabitants of this land of despair.  A band of
      Pawnees or of Blackfeet may occasionally traverse it in order to
      reach other hunting-grounds, but the hardiest of the braves are
      glad to lose sight of those awesome plains, and to find themselves
      once more upon their prairies.  The coyote skulks among the scrub,
      the buzzard flaps heavily through the air, and the clumsy grizzly
      bear lumbers through the dark ravines, and picks up such
      sustenance as it can amongst the rocks.  These are the sole
      dwellers in the wilderness.

          In the whole world there can be no more dreary view than that
      from the northern slope of the Sierra BIanco.  As far as the eye
      can reach stretches the great flat plain-land, all dusted over
      with patches of alkali, and intersected by clumps of the dwarfish
      chaparral bushes.  On the extreme verge of the horizon lie a long
      chain of mountain peaks, with their rugged summits flecked with
      snow.  In this great stretch of country there is no sign of life,
      nor of anything appertaining to life.  There is no bird in the
      steel-blue heaven, no movement upon the dull, gray earth -- above
      all, there is absolute silence.  Listen as one may, there is no
      shadow of a sound in all that mighty wilderness; nothing but
      silence -- complete and heart-subduing silence.

          It has been said there is nothing appertaining to life upon
      the broad plain.  That is hardly true.  Looking down from the
      Sierra BIanco, one sees a pathway traced out across the desert,
      which winds away and is lost in the extreme distance.  It is
      rutted with wheels and trodden down by the feet of many
      adventurers.  Here and there there are scattered white objects
      which glisten in the sun, and stand out against the dull deposit
      of alkali.  Approach, and examine them!  They are bones: some
      large and coarse, others smaller and more delicate.  The former
      have belonged to oxen, and the latter to men.  For fifteen hundred
      miles one may trace this ghastly caravan route by these scattered
      remains of those who had fallen by the wayside.

          Looking down on this very scene, there stood upon the fourth
      of May, eighteen hundred and forty-seven, a solitary traveller.
      His appearance was such that he might have been the very genius or
      demon of the region.  An observer would have found it difficult to
      say whether he was nearer to forty or to sixty.  His face was lean
      and haggard, and the brown parchment-like skin was drawn tightly
      over the projecting bones; his long, brown hair and beard were all
      flecked and dashed with white; his eyes were sunken in his head,
      and burned with an unnatural lustre; while the hand which grasped
      his rifle was hardly more fleshy than that of a skeleton.  As he
      stood, he leaned upon his weapon for support, and yet his tall
      figure and the massive framework of his bones suggested a wiry and
      vigorous constitution.  His gaunt face, however, and his clothes,
      which hung so baggily over his shrivelled limbs, proclaimed what
      it was that gave him that senile and decrepit appearance.  The man
      was dying -- dying from hunger and from thirst.

          He had toiled painfully down the ravine, and on to this little
      elevation, in the vain hope of seeing some signs of water.  Now
      the great salt plain stretched before his eyes, and the distant
      belt of savage mountains, without a sign anywhere of plant or
      tree, which might indicate the presence of moisture.  In all that
      broad landscape there was no gleam of hope.  North, and east, and
      west he looked with wild, questioning eyes, and then he realized
      that his wanderings had come to an end, and that there, on that
      barren crag, he was about to die.  "Why not here, as well as in a
      feather bed, twenty years hence?" he muttered, as he seated
      himself in the shelter of a boulder.

          Before sitting down, he had deposited upon the ground his
      useless rifle, and also a large bundle tied up in a gray shawl,
      which he had carried slung over his right shoulder.  It appeared
      to be somewhat too heavy for his strength, for in lowering it, it
      came down on the ground with some little violence.  Instantly
      there broke from the gray parcel a little moaning cry, and from it
      there protruded a small, scared face, with very bright brown eyes,
      and two little speckled dimpled fists.

          "You've hurt me!" said a childish voice, reproachfully.

          "Have I, though?" the man answered penitently; "I didn't go
      for to do it."  As he spoke he unwrapped the gray shawl and
      extricated a pretty little girl of about five years of age, whose
      dainty shoes and smart pink frock with its little linen apron, all
      bespoke a mother's care.  The child was pale and wan, but her
      healthy arms and legs showed that she had suffered less than her
      companion.

          "How is it now?" he answered anxiously, for she was still
      rubbing the tousy golden curls which covered the back of her head.

          "Kiss it and make it well," she said, with perfect gravity,
      showing the injured part up to him.  "That's what mother used to
      do.  Where's mother?"

          "Mother's gone.  I guess you'll see her before long."

          "Gone, eh!" said the little girl.  "Funny, she didn't say
      good-bye; she `most always did if she was just goin' over to
      auntie's for tea, and now she's been away three days.  Say, it's
      awful dry, ain't it?  Ain't there no water nor nothing to eat?"

          "No, there ain't nothing, dearie.  You'll just need to be
      patient awhile, and then you'll be all right.  Put your head up
      ag'in me like that, and then you'll feel bullier.  It ain't easy
      to talk when your lips is like leather, but I guess I'd best let
      you know how the cards lie.  What's that you've got?"

          "Pretty things! fine things!" cried the little girl
      enthusiastically, holding up two glittering fragments of mica.
      "When we goes back to home I'll give them to brother Bob."

          "You'll see prettier things than them soon," said the man
      confidently.  "You just wait a bit.  I was going to tell you
      though -- you remember when we left the river?"

          "Oh, yes."

          "Well, we reckoned we'd strike another river soon, d'ye see.
      But there was somethin' wrong; compasses, or map, or somethin',
      and it didn't turn up.  Water ran out.  Just except a little drop
      for the likes of you, and -- and --"

          "And you couldn't wash yourself," interrupted his companion
      gravely, staring up at his grimy visage.

          "No, nor drink.  And Mr. Bender, he was the fust to go, and
      then Indian Pete, and then Mrs. McGregor, and then Johnny Hones,
      and then, dearie, your mother."

          "Then mother's a deader too," cried the little girl, dropping
      her face in her pinafore and sobbing bitterly.

          "Yes, they all went except you and me.  Then I thought there
      was some chance of water in this direction, so I heaved you over
      my shoulder and we tramped it together.  It don't seem as though
      we've improved matters.  There's an almighty small chance for us
      now!"

          "Do you mean that we are going to die too?" asked the child,
      checking her sobs, and raising her tear-stained face.

          "I guess that's about the size of it."

          "Why didn't you say so before?" she said, laughing gleefully.
      "You gave me such a fright.  Why, of course, now as long as we die
      we'll be with mother again."

          "Yes, you will, dearie."

          "And you too.  I'll tell her how awful good you've been.  I'll
      bet she meets us at the door of heaven with a big pitcher of
      water, and a lot of buckwheat cakes, hot, and toasted on both
      sides, like Bob and me was fond of.  How long will it be first?"

          "I don't know -- not very long."  The man's eyes were fixed
      upon the northern horizon.  In the blue vault of the heaven there
      had appeared three little specks which increased in size every
      moment, so rapidly did they approach.  They speedily resolved
      themselves into three large brown birds, which circled over the
      heads of the two wanderers, and then settled upon some rocks which
      overlooked them.  They were buzzards, the vultures of the West,
      whose coming is the forerunner of death.

          "Cocks and hens," cried the little girl gleefully, pointing at
      their ill-omened forms, and clapping her hands to make them rise.
      "Say, did God make this country?"

          "Of course He did," said her companion, rather startled by
      this unexpected question.

          "He made the country down in Illinois, and He made the
      Missouri," the little girl continued.  "I guess somebody else made
      the country in these parts.  It's not nearly so well done.  They
      forgot the water and the trees."

          "What would ye think of offering up prayer?" the man asked
      diffidently.

          "It ain't night yet," she answered.

          "It don't matter.  It ain't quite regular, but He won't mind
      that, you bet.  You say over them ones that you used to say every
      night in the wagon when we was on the plains."

          "Why don't you say some yourself?" the child asked, with
      wondering eyes.

          "I disremember them," he answered.  "I hain't said none since
      I was half the height o' that gun.  I guess it's never too late.
      You say them out, and I'll stand by and come in on the choruses."

          "Then you'll need to kneel down, and me too," she said, laying
      the shawl out for that purpose.  "You've got to put your hands up
      like this.  It makes you feel kind of good."

          It was a strange sight, had there been anything but the
      buzzards to see it.  Side by side on the narrow shawl knelt the
      two wanderers, the little prattling child and the reckless,
      hardened adventurer.  Her chubby face and his haggard, angular
      visage were both turned up to the cloudless heaven in heartfelt
      entreaty to that dread Being with whom they were face to face,
      while the two voices -- the one thin and clear, the other deep and
      harsh -- united in the entreaty for mercy and forgiveness.  The
      prayer finished, they resumed their seat in the shadow of the
      boulder until the child fell asleep, nestling upon the broad
      breast of her protector.  He watched over her slumber for some
      time, but Nature proved to be too strong for him.  For three days
      and three nights he had allowed himself neither rest nor repose.
      Slowly the eyelids drooped over the tired eyes, and the head sunk
      lower and lower upon the breast, until the man's grizzled beard
      was mixed with the gold tresses of his companion, and both slept
      the same deep and dreamless slumber.

          Had the wanderer remained awake for another half-hour a
      strange sight would have met his eyes.  Far away on the extreme
      verge of the alkali plain there rose up a little spray of dust,
      very slight at first, and hardly to be distinguished from the
      mists of the distance, but gradually growing higher and broader
      until it formed a solid, well-defined cloud.  This cloud continued
      to increase in size until it became evident that it could only be
      raised by a great multitude of moving creatures.  In more fertile
      spots the observer would have come to the conclusion that one of
      those great herds of bisons which graze upon the prairie land was
      approaching him.  This was obviously impossible in these arid
      wilds.  As the whirl of dust drew nearer to the solitary bluff
      upon which the two castaways were reposing, the canvas-covered
      tilts of wagons and the figures of armed horsemen began to show up
      through the haze, and the apparition revealed itself as being a
      great caravan upon its journey for the West.  But what a caravan!
      When the head of it had reached the base of the mountains, the
      rear was not yet visible on the horizon.  Right across the
      enormous plain stretched the straggling array, wagons and carts,
      men on horseback, and men on foot.  Innumerable women who
      staggered along under burdens, and children who toddled beside the
      wagons or peeped out from under the white coverings.  This was
      evidently no ordinary party of immigrants, but rather some nomad
      people who had been compelled from stress of circumstances to seek
      themselves a new country.  There rose through the clear air a
      confused clattering and rumbling from this great mass of humanity,
      with the creaking of wheels and the neighing of horses.  Loud as
      it was, it was not sufficient to rouse the two tired wayfarers
      above them.

          At the head of the column there rode a score or more of grave,
      iron-faced men, clad in sombre homespun garments and armed with
      rifles.  On reaching the base of the bluff they halted, and held a
      short council among themselves.

          "The wells are to the right, my brothers," said one, a
      hard-lipped, clean-shaven man with grizzly hair.

          "To the right of the Sierra BIanco -- so we shall reach the
      Rio Grande," said another.

          "Fear not for water," cried a third.  "He who could draw it
      from the rocks will not now abandon His own chosen people."

          "Amen! amen!" responded the whole party.

          They were about to resume their journey when one of the
      youngest and keenest-eyed uttered an exclamation and pointed up at
      the rugged crag above them.  From its summit there fluttered a
      little wisp of pink, showing up hard and bright against the gray
      rocks behind.  At the sight there was a general reining up of
      horses and unslinging of guns, while fresh horsemen came galloping
      up to reinforce the vanguard.  The word "Redskins" was on every
      lip.

          "There can't be any number of Injuns here," said the elderly
      man who appeared to be in command.  "We have passed the Pawnees,
      and there are no other tribes until we cross the great mountains."

          "Shall I go forward and see, Brother Stangerson?" asked one of
      the band.

          "And I," "And I," cried a dozen voices.

          "Leave your horses below and we will await you here," the
      elder answered.  In a moment the young fellows had dismounted,
      fastened their horses, and were ascending the precipitous slope
      which led up to the object which had excited their curiosity.
      They advanced rapidly and noiselessly, with the confidence and
      dexterity of practised scouts.  The watchers from the plain below
      could see them flit from rock to rock until their figures stood
      out against the sky-line.  The young man who had first given the
      alarm was leading them.  Suddenly his followers saw him throw up
      his hands, as though overcome with astonishment, and on joining
      him they were affected in the same way by the sight which met
      their eyes.

          On the little plateau which crowned the barren hill there
      stood a single giant boulder, and against this boulder there lay a
      tall man, long-bearded and hard-featured, but of an excessive
      thinness.  His placid face and regular breathing showed that he
      was fast asleep.  Beside him lay a child, with her round white
      arms encircling his brown sinewy neck, and her golden-haired head
      resting upon the breast of his velveteen tunic.  Her rosy lips
      were parted, showing the regular line of snow-white teeth within,
      and a playful smile played over her infantile features.  Her plump
      little white legs, terminating in white socks and neat shoes with
      shining buckles, offered a strange contrast to the long shrivelled
      members of her companion.  On the ledge of rock above this strange
      couple there stood three solemn buzzards, who, at the sight of the
      newcomers, uttered raucous screams of disappointment and flapped
      sullenly away.

          The cries of the foul birds awoke the two sleepers, who stared
      about them in bewilderment.  The man staggered to his feet and
      looked down upon the plain which had been so desolate when sleep
      had overtaken him, and which was now traversed by this enormous
      body of men and of beasts.  His face assumed an expression of
      incredulity as he gazed, and he passed his bony hand over his
      eyes.  "This is what they call delirium, I guess," he muttered.
      The child stood beside him, holding on to the skirt of his coat,
      and said nothing, but looked all round her with the wondering,
      questioning gaze of childhood.

          The rescuing party were speedily able to convince the two
      castaways that their appearance was no delusion.  One of them
      seized the little girl and hoisted her upon his shoulder, while
      two others supported her gaunt companion, and assisted him towards
      the wagons.

          "My name is John Ferrier," the wanderer explained; "me and
      that little un are all that's left o' twenty-one people.  The rest
      is all dead o' thirst and hunger away down in the south."

          "Is she your child?" asked someone.

          "I guess she is now," the other cried, defiantly; "she's mine
      `cause I saved her.  No man will take her from me.  She's Lucy
      Ferrier from this day on.  Who are you, though?" he continued,
      glancing with curiosity at his stalwart, sunburned rescuers;
      "there seems to be a powerful lot of ye."

          "Nigh unto ten thousand," said one of the young men; "we are
      the persecuted children of God -- the chosen of the Angel Moroni."

          "I never heard tell on him," said the wanderer.  "He appears
      to have chosen a fair crowd of ye."

          "Do not jest at that which is sacred," said the other,
      sternly.  "We are of those who believe in those sacred writings,
      drawn in Egyptian letters on plates of beaten gold, which were
      handed unto the holy Joseph Smith at Palmyra.  We have come from
      Nauvoo, in the state of Illinois, where we had founded our temple.
      We have come to seek a refuge from the violent man and from the
      godless, even though it be the heart of the desert."

          The name of Nauvoo evidently recalled recollections to John
      Ferrier.  "I see," he said; "you are the Mormons."

          "We are the Mormons," answered his companions with one voice.

          "And where are you going?"

          "We do not know.  The hand of God is leading us under the
      person of our Prophet.  You must come before him.  He shall say
      what is to be done with you."

          They had reached the base of the hill by this time, and were
      surrounded by crowds of the pilgrims -- pale-faced, meek-looking
      women; strong, laughing children; and anxious, earnest-eyed men.
      Many were the cries of astonishment and of commiseration which
      arose from them when they perceived the youth of one of the
      strangers and the destitution of the other.  Their escort did not
      halt, however, but pushed on, followed by a great crowd of
      Mormons, until they reached a wagon, which was conspicuous for its
      great size and for the gaudiness and smartness of its appearance.
      Six horses were yoked to it, whereas the others were furnished
      with two, or, at most, four apiece.  Beside the driver there sat a
      man who could not have been more than thirty years of age, but
      whose massive head and resolute expression marked him as a leader.
      He was reading a brown-backed volume, but as the crowd approached
      he laid it aside, and listened attentively to an account of the
      episode.  Then he turned to the two castaways.

          "If we take you with us," he said, in solemn words, "it can
      only be as believers in our own creed.  We shall have no wolves in
      our fold.  Better far that your bones should bleach in this
      wilderness than that you should prove to be that little speck of
      decay which in time corrupts the whole fruit.  Will you come with
      us on these terms?"

          "Guess I'll come with you on any terms," said Ferrier, with
      such emphasis that the grave Elders could not restrain a smile.
      The leader alone retained his stern, impressive expression.

          "Take him, Brother Stangerson," he said, "give him food and
      drink, and the child likewise.  Let it be your task also to teach
      him our holy creed.  We have delayed long enough.  Forward!  On,
      on to Zion!"

          "On, on to Zion!" cried the crowd of Mormons, and the words
      rippled down the long caravan, passing from mouth to mouth until
      they died away in a dull murmur in the far distance.  With a
      cracking of whips and a creaking of wheels the great wagons got
      into motion, and soon the whole caravan was winding along once
      more.  The Elder to whose care the two waifs had been committed
      led them to his wagon, where a meal was already awaiting them.

          "You shall remain here," he said.  "In a few days you will
      have recovered from your fatigues.  In the meantime, remember that
      now and forever you are of our religion.  Brigham Young has said
      it, and he has spoken with the voice of Joseph Smith, which is the
      voice of God."

                         A STUDY IN SCARLET -- Part 2
                        Chapter 2:  The Flower of Utah

      This is not the place to commemorate the trials and privations
      endured by the immigrant Mormons before they came to their final
      haven.  From the shores of the Mississippi to the western slopes
      of the Rocky Mountains they had struggled on with a constancy
      almost unparalleled in history.  The savage man, and the savage
      beast, hunger, thirst, fatigue, and disease -- every impediment
      which Nature could place in the way -- had all been overcome with
      Anglo-Saxon tenacity.  Yet the long journey and the accumulated
      terrors had shaken the hearts of the stoutest among them.  There
      was not one who did not sink upon his knees in heartfelt prayer
      when they saw the broad valley of Utah bathed in the sunlight
      beneath them, and learned from the lips of their leader that this
      was the promised land, and that these virgin acres were to be
      theirs for evermore.

          Young speedily proved himself to be a skilful administrator as
      well as a resolute chief.  Maps were drawn and charts prepared, in
      which the future city was sketched out.  All around farms were
      apportioned and allotted in proportion to the standing of each
      individual.  The tradesman was put to his trade and the artisan to
      his calling.  In the town streets and squares sprang up as if by
      magic.  In the country there was draining and hedging, planting
      and clearing, until the next summer saw the whole country golden
      with the wheat crop.  Everything prospered in the strange
      settlement.  Above all, the great temple which they had erected in
      the centre of the city grew ever taller and larger.  From the
      first blush of dawn until the closing of the twilight, the clatter
      of the hammer and the rasp of the saw were never absent from the
      monument which the immigrants erected to Him who had led them safe
      through many dangers.

          The two castaways, John Ferrier and the little girl, who had
      shared his fortunes and had been adopted as his daughter,
      accompanied the Mormons to the end of their great pilgrimage.
      Little Lucy Ferrier was borne along pleasantly enough in Elder
      Stangerson's wagon, a retreat which she shared with the Mormon's
      three wives and with his son, a headstrong, forward boy of twelve.
      Having rallied, with the elasticity of childhood, from the shock
      caused by her mother's death, she soon became a pet with the
      women, and reconciled herself to this new life in her moving
      canvas-covered home.  In the meantime Ferrier having recovered
      from his privations, distinguished himself as a useful guide and
      an indefatigable hunter.  So rapidly did he gain the esteem of his
      new companions, that when they reached the end of their
      wanderings, it was unanimously agreed that he should be provided
      with as large and as fertile a tract of land as any of the
      settlers, with the exception of Young himself, and of Stangerson,
      Kemball, Johnston, and Drebber, who were the four principal
      Elders.

          On the farm thus acquired John Ferrier built himself a
      substantial log-house, which received so many additions in
      succeeding years that it grew into a roomy villa.  He was a man of
      a practical turn of mind, keen in his dealings and skilful with
      his hands.  His iron constitution enabled him to work morning and
      evening at improving and tilling his lands.  Hence it came about
      that his farm and all that belonged to him prospered exceedingly.
      In three years he was better off than his neighbours, in six he
      was well-to-do, in nine he was rich, and in twelve there were not
      half a dozen men in the whole of Salt Lake City who could compare
      with him.  From the great inland sea to the distant Wasatch
      Mountains there was no name better known than that of John
      Ferrier.

          There was one way and only one in which he offended the
      susceptibilities of his co-religionists.  No argument or
      persuasion could ever induce him to set up a female establishment
      after the manner of his companions.  He never gave reasons for
      this persistent refusal, but contented himself by resolutely and
      inflexibly adhering to his determination.  There were some who
      accused him of lukewarmness in his adopted religion, and others
      who put it down to greed of wealth and reluctance to incur
      expense.  Others, again, spoke of some early love affair, and of a
      fair-haired girl who had pined away on the shores of the Atlantic.
      Whatever the reason, Ferrier remained strictly celibate.  In every
      other respect he conformed to the religion of the young
      settlement, and gained the name of being an orthodox and
      straight-walking man.

          Lucy Ferrier grew up within the log-house, and assisted her
      adopted father in all his undertakings.  The keen air of the
      mountains and the balsamic odour of the pine trees took the place
      of nurse and mother to the young girl.  As year succeeded to year
      she grew taller and stronger, her cheek more ruddy and her step
      more elastic.  Many a wayfarer upon the high road which ran by
      Ferrier's farm felt long-forgotten thoughts revive in his mind as
      he watched her lithe, girlish figure tripping through the
      wheatfields, or met her mounted upon her father's mustang, and
      managing it with all the ease and grace of a true child of the
      West.  So the bud blossomed into a flower, and the year which saw
      her father the richest of the farmers left her as fair a specimen
      of American girlhood as could be found in the whole Pacific slope.

          It was not the father, however, who first discovered that the
      child had developed into the woman.  It seldom is in such cases.
      That mysterious change is too subtle and too gradual to be
      measured by dates.  Least of all does the maiden herself know it
      until the tone of a voice or the touch of a hand sets her heart
      thrilling within her, and she learns, with a mixture of pride and
      of fear, that a new and a larger nature has awakened within her.
      There are few who cannot recall that day and remember the one
      little incident which heralded the dawn of a new life.  In the
      case of Lucy Ferrier the occasion was serious enough in itself,
      apart from its future influence on her destiny and that of many
      besides.

          It was a warm June morning, and the Latter Day Saints were as
      busy as the bees whose hive they have chosen for their emblem.  In
      the fields and in the streets rose the same hum of human industry.
      Down the dusty high roads defiled long streams of heavily laden
      mules, all heading to the west, for the gold fever had broken out
      in California, and the overland route lay through the city of the
      Elect.  There, too, were droves of sheep and bullocks coming in
      from the outlying pasture lands, and trains of tired immigrants,
      men and horses equally weary of their interminable journey.
      Through all this motley assemblage, threading her way with the
      skill of an accomplished rider, there galloped Lucy Ferrier, her
      fair face flushed with the exercise and her long chestnut hair
      floating out behind her.  She had a commission from her father in
      the city, and was dashing in as she had done many a time before,
      with all the fearlessness of youth, thinking only of her task and
      how it was to be performed.  The travel-stained adventurers gazed
      after her in astonishment, and even the unemotional Indians,
      journeying in with their peltries, relaxed their accustomed
      stoicism as they marvelled at the beauty of the pale-faced maiden.

          She had reached the outskirts of the city when she found the
      road blocked by a great drove of cattle, driven by a half-dozen
      wild-looking herdsmen from the plains.  In her impatience she
      endeavoured to pass this obstacle by pushing her horse into what
      appeared to be a gap.  Scarcely had she got fairly into it,
      however, before the beasts closed in behind her, and she found
      herself completely embedded in the moving stream of fierce-eyed,
      long-horned bullocks.  Accustomed as she was to deal with cattle,
      she was not alarmed at her situation, but took advantage of every
      opportunity to urge her horse on, in the hopes of pushing her way
      through the cavalcade.  Unfortunately the horns of one of the
      creatures, either by accident or design, came in violent contact
      with the flank of the mustang, and excited it to madness.  In an
      instant it reared up upon its hind legs with a snort of rage, and
      pranced and tossed in a way that would have unseated any but a
      skilful rider.  The situation was full of peril.  Every plunge of
      the excited horse brought it against the horns again, and goaded
      it to fresh madness.  It was all that the girl could do to keep
      herself in the saddle, yet a slip would mean a terrible death
      under the hoofs of the unwieldy and terrified animals.
      Unaccustomed to sudden emergencies, her head began to swim, and
      her grip upon the bridle to relax.  Choked by the rising cloud of
      dust and by the steam from the struggling creatures, she might
      have abandoned her efforts in despair, but for a kindly voice at
      her elbow which assured her of assistance.  At the same moment a
      sinewy brown hand caught the frightened horse by the curb, and
      forcing a way through the drove, soon brought her to the
      outskirts.

          "You're not hurt, I hope, miss," said her preserver,
      respectfully.

          She looked up at his dark, fierce face, and laughed saucily.
      "I'm awful frightened," she said, naively; "whoever would have
      thought that Poncho would have been so scared by a lot of cows?"

          "Thank God, you kept your seat," the other said, earnestly.
      He was a tall, savage-looking young fellow, mounted on a powerful
      roan horse, and clad in the rough dress of a hunter, with a long
      rifle slung over his shoulders.  "I guess you are the daughter of
      John Ferrier," he remarked; "I saw you ride down from his house.
      When you see him, ask him if he remembers the Jefferson Hopes of
      St. Louis.  If he's the same Ferrier, my father and he were pretty
      thick."

          "Hadn't you better come and ask yourself?" she asked,
      demurely.

          The young fellow seemed pleased at the suggestion, and his
      dark eyes sparkled with pleasure.  "I'll do so, he said; we've
      been in the mountains for two months, and are not over and above
      in visiting condition.  He must take us as he finds us."

          "He has a good deal to thank you for, and so have I," she
      answered; "he's awful fond of me.  If those cows had jumped on me
      he'd have never got over it."

          "Neither would I," said her companion.

          "You!  Well, I don't see that it would make much matter to
      you, anyhow.  You ain't even a friend of ours."

          The young hunter's dark face grew so gloomy over this remark
      that Lucy Ferrier laughed aloud.

          "There, I didn't mean that," she said; "of course, you are a
      friend now.  You must come and see us.  Now I must push along, or
      father won't trust me with his business any more.  Good-bye!"

          "Good-bye," he answered, raising his broad sombrero, and
      bending over her little hand.  She wheeled her mustang round, gave
      it a cut with her riding-whip, and darted away down the broad road
      in a rolling cloud of dust.

          Young Jefferson Hope rode on with his companions, gloomy and
      taciturn.  He and they had been among the Nevada Mountains
      prospecting for silver, and were returning to Salt Lake City in
      the hope of raising capital enough to work some lodes which they
      had discovered.  He had been as keen as any of them upon the
      business until this sudden incident had drawn his thoughts into
      another channel.  The sight of the fair young girl, as frank and
      wholesome as the Sierra breezes, had stirred his volcanic, untamed
      heart to its very depths.  When she had vanished from his sight,
      he realized that a crisis had come in his life, and that neither
      silver speculations nor any other questions could ever be of such
      importance to him as this new and all-absorbing one.  The love
      which had sprung up in his heart was not the sudden, changeable
      fancy of a boy, but rather the wild, fierce passion of a man of
      strong will and imperious temper.  He had been accustomed to
      succeed in all that he undertook.  He swore in his heart that he
      would not fail in this if human effort and human perseverance
      could render him successful.

          He called on John Ferrier that night, and many times again,
      until his face was a familiar one at the farmhouse.  John, cooped
      up in the valley, and absorbed in his work, had had little chance
      of learning the news of the outside world during the last twelve
      years.  All this Jefferson Hope was able to tell him, and in a
      style which interested Lucy as well as her father.  He had been a
      pioneer in California, and could narrate many a strange tale of
      fortunes made and fortunes lost in those wild, halcyon days.  He
      had been a scout too, and a flapper, a silver explorer, and a
      ranchman.  Wherever stirring adventures were to be had, Jefferson
      Hope had been there in search of them.  He soon became a favourite
      with the old farmer, who spoke eloquently of his virtues.  On such
      occasions, Lucy was silent, but her blushing cheek and her bright,
      happy eyes showed only too clearly that her young heart was no
      longer her own.  Her honest father may not have observed these
      symptoms, but they were assuredly not thrown away upon the man who
      had won her affections.

          One summer evening he came galloping down the road and pulled
      up at the gate.  She was at the doorway, and came down to meet
      him.  He threw the bridle over the fence and strode up the
      pathway.

          "I am off, Lucy," he said, taking her two hands in his, and
      gazing tenderly down into her face: "I won't ask you to come with
      me now, but will you be ready to come when I am here again?"

          "And when will that be?" she asked, blushing and laughing.

          "A couple of months at the outside.  I will come and claim you
      then, my darling.  There's no one who can stand between us."

          "And how about father?" she asked.

          "He has given his consent, provided we get these mines working
      all right.  I have no fear on that head."

          "Oh, well; of course, if you and father have arranged it all,
      there's no more to be said," she whispered, with her cheek against
      his broad breast.

          "Thank God!" he said, hoarsely, stooping and kissing her.  "It
      is settled, then.  The longer I stay, the harder it will be to go.
      They are waiting for me at the canon.  Good-bye, my own darling --
      good-bye.  In two months you shall see me."

          He tore himself from her as he spoke, and, flinging himself
      upon his horse, galloped furiously away, never even looking round,
      as though afraid that his resolution might fail him if he took one
      glance at what he was leaving.  She stood at the gate, gazing
      after him until he vanished from her sight.  Then she walked back
      into the house, the happiest girl in all Utah.

                         A STUDY IN SCARLET -- Part 2
                Chapter 3:  John Ferrier Talks With the Prophet

      Three weeks had passed since Jefferson Hope and his comrades had
      departed from Salt Lake City.  John Ferrier's heart was sore
      within him when he thought of the young man's return, and of the
      impending loss of his adopted child.  Yet her bright and happy
      face reconciled him to the arrangement more than any argument
      could have done.  He had always determined, deep down in his
      resolute heart, that nothing would ever induce him to allow his
      daughter to wed a Mormon.  Such marriage he regarded as no
      marriage at all, but as a shame and a disgrace.  Whatever he might
      think of the Mormon doctrines, upon that one point he was
      inflexible.  He had to seal his mouth on the subject, however, for
      to express an unorthodox opinion was a dangerous matter in those
      days in the Land of the Saints.

          Yes, a dangerous matter -- so dangerous that even the most
      saintly dared only whisper their religious opinions with bated
      breath, lest something which fell from their lips might be
      misconstrued, and bring down a swift retribution upon them.  The
      victims of persecution had now turned persecutors on their own
      account, and persecutors of the most terrible description.  Not
      the Inquisition of Seville, nor the German Vehmgericht, nor the
      secret societies of Italy, were ever able to put a more formidable
      machinery in motion than that which cast a cloud over the state of
      Utah.

          Its invisibility, and the mystery which was attached to it,
      made this organization doubly terrible.  It appeared to be
      omniscient and omnipotent, and yet was neither seen nor heard.
      The man who held out against the Church vanished away, and none
      knew whether he had gone or what had befallen him.  His wife and
      his children awaited him at home, but no father ever returned to
      tell them how he had fared at the hands of his secret judges.  A
      rash word or a hasty act was followed by annihilation, and yet
      none knew what the nature might be of this terrible power which
      was suspended over them.  No wonder that men went about in fear
      and trembling, and that even in the heart of the wilderness they
      dared not whisper the doubts which oppressed them.

          At first this vague and terrible power was exercised only upon
      the recalcitrants who, having embraced the Mormon faith, wished
      afterwards to pervert or to abandon it.  Soon, however, it took a
      wider range.  The supply of adult women was running short, and
      polygamy without a female population on which to draw was a barren
      doctrine indeed.  Strange rumours began to be bandied about --
      rumours of murdered immigrants and rifled camps in regions where
      Indians had never been seen.  Fresh women appeared in the harems
      of the Elders -- women who pined and wept, and bore upon their
      faces the traces of an unextinguishable horror.  Belated wanderers
      upon the mountains spoke of gangs of armed men, masked, stealthy,
      and noiseless, who flitted by them in the darkness.  These tales
      and rumours took substance and shape, and were corroborated and
      recorroborated, until they resolved themselves into a definite
      name.  To this day, in the lonely ranches of the West, the name of
      the Danite Band, or the Avenging Angels, is a sinister and an
      ill-omened one.

          Fuller knowledge of the organization which produced such
      terrible results served to increase rather than to lessen the
      honor which it inspired in the minds of men.  None knew who
      belonged to this ruthless society.  The names of the participators
      in the deeds of blood and violence done under the name of religion
      were kept profoundly secret.  The very friend to whom you
      communicated your misgivings as to the Prophet and his mission
      might be one of those who would come forth at night with fire and
      sword to exact a terrible reparation.  Hence every man feared his
      neighbour, and none spoke of the things which were nearest his
      heart.

          One fine morning John Ferrier was about to set out to his
      wheatfields, when he heard the click of the latch, and, looking
      through the window, saw a stout, sandy-haired, middle-aged man
      coming up the pathway.  His heart leapt to his mouth, for this was
      none other than the great Brigham Young himself.  Full of
      trepidation -- for he knew that such a visit boded him little good
      -- Ferrier ran to the door to greet the Mormon chief.  The latter,
      however, received his salutations coldly, and followed him with a
      stern face into the sitting-room.

          "Brother Ferrier," he said, taking a seat, and eyeing the
      farmer keenly from under his light-coloured eyelashes, "the true
      believers have been good friends to you.  We picked you up when
      you were starving in the desert, we shared our food with you, led
      you safe to the Chosen Valley, gave you a goodly share of land,
      and allowed you to wax rich under our protection.  Is not this
      so?"

          "It is so," answered John Ferrier.

          "In return for all this we asked but one condition:  that was,
      that you should embrace the true faith, and conform in every way
      to its usages.  This you promised to do, and this, if common
      report says truly, you have neglected."

          "And how have I neglected it?" asked Ferrier, throwing out his
      hands in expostulation.  "Have I not given to the common fund?
      Have I not attended at the Temple?  Have I not --?"

          "Where are your wives?" asked Young, looking round him.  "Call
      them in, that I may greet them."

          "It is true that I have not married," Ferrier answered.  "But
      women were few, and there were many who had better claims than I.
      I was not a lonely man:  I had my daughter to attend to my wants."

          "It is of that daughter that I would speak to you," said the
      leader of the Mormons.  "She has grown to be the flower of Utah,
      and has found favour in the eyes of many who are high in the
      land."

          John Ferrier groaned internally.

          "There are stories of her which I would fain disbelieve --
      stories that she is sealed to some Gentile.  This must be the
      gossip of idle tongues.  What is the thirteenth rule in the code
      of the sainted Joseph Smith?  `Let every maiden of the true faith
      marry one of the elect; for if she wed a Gentile, she commits a
      grievous sin.'  This being so, it is impossible that you, who
      profess the holy creed, should suffer your daughter to violate
      it."

          John Ferrier made no answer, but he played nervously with his
      riding-whip.

          "Upon this one point your whole faith shall be tested -- so it
      has been decided in the Sacred Council of Four.  The girl is
      young, and we would not have her wed gray hairs, neither would we
      deprive her of all choice.  We Elders have many heifers (* 1), but
      our children must also be provided.  Stangerson has a son, and
      Drebber has a son, and either of them would gladly welcome your
      daughter to his house.  Let her choose between them.  They are
      young and rich, and of the true faith.  What say you to that?"

          Ferrier remained silent for some, little time with his brows
      knitted.

          "You will give us time," he said at last.  "My daughter is
      very young -- she is scarce of an age to marry."

          "She shall have a month to choose," said Young, rising from
      his seat.  "At the end of that time she shall give her answer."

          He was passing through the door, when he turned with flushed
      face and flashing eyes.  "It were better for you, John Ferrier,"
      he thundered, "that you and she were now lying blanched skeletons
      upon the Sierra Blanco, than that you should put your weak wills
      against the orders of the Holy Four!"

          With a threatening gesture of his hand, he turned from the
      door, and Ferrier heard his heavy steps scrunching along the
      shingly path.

          He was still sitting with his elbow upon his knee, considering
      how he should broach the matter to his daughter, when a soft hand
      was laid upon his, and looking up, he saw her standing beside him.
      One glance at her pale, frightened face showed him that she had
      heard what had passed.

          "I could not help it," she said, in answer to his look.  "His
      voice rang through the house.  Oh, father, father, what shall we
      do?"

          "Don't you scare yourself," he answered, drawing her to him,
      and passing his broad, rough hand caressingly over her chestnut
      hair.  "We'll fix it up somehow or another.  You don't find your
      fancy kind o' lessening for this chap, do you?"

          A sob and a squeeze of his hand were her only answer.

          "No; of course not.  I shouldn't care to hear you say you did.
      He's a likely lad, and he's a Christian, which is more than these
      folks here, in spite o' all their praying and preaching.  There's
      a party starting for Nevada to-morrow, and I'll manage to send him
      a message letting him know the hole we are in.  If I know anything
      o' that young man, he'll be back with a speed that would whip
      electrotelegraphs."

          Lucy laughed through her tears at her father's description.

          "When he comes, he will advise us for the best.  But it is for
      you that I am frightened, dear.  One hears -- one hears such
      dreadful stories about those who oppose the Prophet; something
      terrible always happens to them."

          "But we haven't opposed him yet," her father answered.  "It
      will be time to look out for squalls when we do.  We have a clear
      month before us; at the end of that, I guess we had best shin out
      of Utah."

          "Leave Utah "

          "That's about the size of it."

          "But the farm?"

          "We will raise as much as we can in money, and let the rest
      go.  To tell the truth, Lucy, it isn't the first time I have
      thought of doing it.  I don't care about knuckling under to any
      man, as these folk do to their darned Prophet.  I'm a freeborn
      American, and it's all new to me.  Guess I'm too old to learn.  If
      he comes browsing about this farm, he might chance to run up
      against a charge of buckshot travelling in the opposite
      direction."

          "But they won't let us leave," his daughter objected.

          "Wait till Jefferson comes, and we'll soon manage that.  In
      the meantime, don't you fret yourself, my dearie, and don't get
      your eyes swelled up, else he'll be walking into me when he sees
      you.  There's nothing to be afeared about, and there's no danger
      at all."

          John Ferrier uttered these consoling remarks in a very
      confident tone, but she could not help observing that he paid
      unusual care to the fastening of the doors that night, and that he
      carefully cleaned and loaded the rusty old shot-gun which hung
      upon the wall of his bedroom.

                                    Footnote

  * 1.  Heber C. Kemball, in one of his sermons, alludes to his hundred wives
      under this endearing epithet.


                         A STUDY IN SCARLET -- Part 2
                         Chapter 4:  A Flight for Life

      On the morning which followed his interview with the Mormon
      Prophet, John Ferrier went in to Salt Lake City, and having found
      his acquaintance, who was bound for the Nevada Mountains, he
      entrusted him with his message to Jefferson Hope.  In it he told
      the young man of the imminent danger which threatened them, and
      how necessary it was that he should return.  Having done thus he
      felt easier in his mind, and returned home with a lighter heart.

          As he approached his farm, he was surprised to see a horse
      hitched to each of the posts of the gate.  Still more surprised
      was he on the entering to find two young men in possession of his
      sitting-room.  One, with a long pale face, was leaning back in the
      rccking-chair, with his feet cocked up upon the stove.  The other,
      a bull-necked youth with coarse, bloated features, was standing in
      front of the window with his hands in his pockets whistling a
      popular hymn.  Both of them nodded to Ferrier as he entered, and
      the one in the rocking-chair commenced the conversation.

          "Maybe you don't know us," he said.  "This here is the son of
      Elder Drebber, and I'm Joseph Stangerson, who travelled with you
      in the desert when the Lord stretched out His hand and gathered
      you into the true fold."

          "As He will all the nations in His own good time," said the
      other in a nasal voice; "He grindeth slowly but exceeding small."

          John Ferrier bowed coldly.  He had guessed who his visitors
      were.

          "We have come," continued Stangerson, "at the advice of our
      fathers to solicit the hand of your daughter for whichever of us
      may seem good to you and to her.  As I have but four wives and
      Brother Drebber here has seven, it appears to me that my claim is
      the stronger one."

          "Nay, nay, Brother Stangerson," cried the other; "the question
      is not how many wives we have, but how many we can keep.  My
      father has now given over his mills to me, and I am the richer
      man."

          "But my prospects are better," said the other, warmly.  "When
      the Lord removes my father, I shall have his tanning yard and his
      leather factory.  Then I am your elder, and am higher in the
      Church."

          "It will be for the maiden to decide," rejoined young Drebber,
      smirking at his own reflection in the glass.  "We will leave it
      all to her decision."

          During this dialogue John Ferrier had stood fuming in the
      doorway, hardly able to keep his riding-whip from the backs of his
      two visitors.

          "Look here," he said at last, striding up to them, "when my
      daughter summons you, you can come, but until then I don't want to
      see your faces again."

          The two young Mormons stared at him in amazement.  In their
      eyes this competition between them for the maiden's hand was the
      highest of honours both to her and her father.

          "There are two ways out of the room," cried Ferrier; "there is
      the door, and there is the window.  Which do you care to use?"

          His brown face looked so savage, and his gaunt hands so
      threatening, that his visitors sprang to their feet and heat a
      hurried retreat.  The old farmer followed them to the door.

          "Let me know when you have settled which it is to be," he
      said, sardonically.

          "You shall smart for this!" Stangerson cried, white with rage.
      "You have defied the Prophet and the Council of Four.  You shall
      rue it to the end of your days."

          "The hand of the Lord shall be heavy upon you," cried young
      Drebber; "He will arise and smite you!"

          "Then I'll start the smiting," exclaimed Ferrier, furiously,
      and would have rushed upstairs for his gun had not Lucy seized him
      by the arm and restrained him.  Before he could escape from her,
      the clatter of horses' hoofs told him that they were beyond his
      reach.

          "The young canting rascals!" he exclaimed, wiping the
      perspiration from his forehead; "I would sooner see you in your
      grave, my girl, than the wife of either of them."

          "And so should I, father," she answered, with spirit; "but
      Jefferson will soon be here."

          "Yes.  It will not be long before he comes.  The sooner the
      better, for we do not know what their next move may be."

          It was, indeed, high time that someone capable of giving
      advice and help should come to the aid of the sturdy old farmer
      and his adopted daughter.  In the whole history of the settlement
      there had never been such a case of rank disobedience to the
      authority of the Elders.  If minor errors were punished so
      sternly, what would be the fate of this arch rebel?  Ferrier knew
      that his wealth and position would be of no avail to him.  Others
      as well known and as rich as himself had been spirited away before
      now, and their goods given over to the Church.  He was a brave
      man, but he trembled at the vague, shadowy terrors which hung over
      him.  Any known danger he could face with a firm lip, but this
      suspense was unnerving.  He concealed his fears from his daughter,
      however, and affected to make light of the whole matter, though
      she, with the keen eye of love, saw plainly that he was ill at
      ease.

          He expected that he would receive some message or remonstrance
      from Young as to his conduct, and he was not mistaken, though it
      came in an unlooked-for manner.  Upon rising next morning he
      found, to his surprise, a small square of paper pinned on to the
      coverlet of his bed just over his chest.  On it was printed, in
      bold, straggling letters:--

          "Twenty-nine days are given you for amendment, and then --"

          The dash was more fear-inspiring than any threat could have
      been.  How this warning came into his room puzzled John Ferrier
      sorely, for his servants slept in an outhouse, and the doors and
      windows had all been secured.  He crumpled the paper up and said
      nothing to his daughter, but the incident struck a chill into his
      heart.  The twenty-nine days were evidently the balance of the
      month which Young had promised.  What strength or courage could
      avail against an enemy armed with such mysterious powers?  The
      hand which fastened that pin might have struck him to the heart,
      and he could never have known who had slain him.

          Still more shaken was he next morning.  They had sat down to
      their breakfast, when Lucy with a cry of surprise pointed upwards.
      In the centre of the ceiling was scrawled, with a burned stick
      apparently, the number 28.  To his daughter it was unintelligible,
      and he did not enlighten her.  That night he sat up with his gun
      and kept watch and ward.  He saw and he heard nothing, and yet in
      the morning a great 27 had been painted upon the outside of his
      door.

          Thus day followed day; and as sure as morning came he found
      that his unseen enemies had kept their register, and had marked up
      in some conspicuous position how many days were still left to him
      out of the month of grace.  Sometimes the fatal numbers appeared
      upon the walls, sometimes upon the floors, occasionally they were
      on small placards stuck upon the garden gate or the railings.
      With all his vigilance John Ferrier could not discover whence
      these daily warnings proceeded.  A horror which was almost
      superstitious came upon him at the sight of them.  He became
      haggard and restless, and his eyes had the troubled look of some
      hunted creature.  He had but one hope in life now, and that was
      for the arrival of the young hunter from Nevada.

          Twenty had changed to fifteen, and fifteen to ten, but there
      was no news of the absentee.  One by one the numbers dwindled
      down, and still there came no sign of him.  Whenever a horseman
      clattered down the road, or a driver shouted at his team, the old
      farmer hurried to the gate, thinking that help had arrived at
      last.  At last, when he saw five give way to four and that again
      to three, he lost heart, and abandoned all hope of escape.
      Singlehanded, and with his limited knowledge of the mountains
      which surrounded the settlement, he knew that he was powerless.
      The more frequented roads were strictly watched and guarded, and
      none could pass along them without an order from the Council.
      Turn which way he would, there appeared to be no avoiding the blow
      which hung over him.  Yet the old man never wavered in his
      resolution to part with life itself before he consented to what he
      regarded as his daughter's dishonour.

          He was sitting alone one evening pondering deeply over his
      troubles, and searching vainly for some way out of them.  That
      morning had shown the figure 2 upon the wall of his house, and the
      next day would be the last of the allotted time.  What was to
      happen then?  All manner of vague and terrible fancies filled his
      imagination.  And his daughter -- what was to become of her after
      he was gone?  Was there no escape from the invisible network which
      was drawn all round them?  He sank his head upon the table and
      sobbed at the thought of his own impotence.

          What was that?  In the silence he heard a gentle scratching
      sound -- low, but very distinct in the quiet of the night.  It
      came from the door of the house.  Ferrier crept into the hall and
      listened intently.  There was a pause for a few moments, and then
      the low, insidious sound was repeated.  Someone was evidently
      tapping very gently upon one of the panels of the door.  Was it
      some midnight assassin who had come to carry out the murderous
      orders of the secret tribunal?  Or was it some agent who was
      marking up that the last day of grace had arrived?  John Ferrier
      felt that instant death would be better than the suspense which
      shook his nerves and chilled his heart.  Springing forward, he
      drew the bolt and threw the door open.

          Outside all was calm and quiet.  The night was fine, and the
      stars were twinkling brightly overhead.  The little front garden
      lay before the farmer's eyes bounded by the fence and gate, but
      neither there nor on the road was any human being to be seen.
      With a sigh of relief, Ferrier looked to right and to left, until,
      happening  to glance straight down at his own feet, he saw to his
      astonishment a man lying flat upon his face upon the ground, with
      arms and legs all asprawl.

          So unnerved was he at the sight that he leaned up against the
      wall with his hand to his throat to stifle his inclination to call
      out.  His first thought was that the prostrate figure was that of
      some wounded or dying man, but as he watched it he saw it writhe
      along the ground and into the hall with the rapidity and
      noiselessness of a serpent.  Once within the house the man sprang
      to his feet, closed the door, and revealed to the astonished
      farmer the fierce face and resolute expression of Jefferson Hope.

          "Good God!" gasped John Ferrier.  "How you scared me!
      Whatever made you come in like that?"

          Give me food," the other said, hoarsely.  "I have had no time
      for bite or sup for eight-and-forty hours."  He flung himself upon
      the cold meat and bread which were still lying upon the table from
      his host's supper, and devoured it voraciously.  "Does Lucy bear
      up well?" he asked, when he had satisfied his hunger.

          "Yes.  She does not know the danger," her father answered.

          "That is well.  The house is watched on every side.  That is
      why I crawled my way up to it.  They may be darned sharp, but
      they're not quite sharp enough to catch a Washoe hunter."

          John Ferrier felt a different man now that he realized that he
      had a devoted ally.  He seized the young man's leathery hand and
      wrung it cordially.  "You're a man to be proud of," he said.
      "There are not many who would come to share our danger and our
      troubles."

          "You've hit it there, pard," the young hunter answered.  "I
      have a respect for you, but if you were alone in this business I'd
      think twice before I put my head into such a hornet's nest.  It's
      Lucy that brings me here, and before harm comes on her I guess
      there will be one less o' the Hope family in Utah."

          "What are we to do?"

          "To-morrow is your last day, and unless you act to-night you
      are lost.  I have a mule and two horses waiting in the Eagle
      Ravine.  How much money have you?"

          "Two thousand dollars in gold, and five in notes."

          "That will do.  I have as much more to add to it.  We must
      push for Carson City through the mountains.  You had best wake
      Lucy.  It is as well that the servants do not sleep in the house."

          While Ferrier was absent, preparing his daughter for the
      approaching journey, Jefferson Hope packed all the eatables that
      he could find into a small parcel, and filled a stoneware jar with
      water, for he knew by experience that the mountain wells were few
      and far between.  He had hardly completed his arrangements before
      the farmer returned with his daughter all dressed and ready for a
      start.  The greeting between the lovers was warm, but brief, for
      minutes were precious, and there was much to be done.

          "We must make our start at once," said Jefferson Hope,
      speaking in a low but resolute voice, like one who realizes the
      greatness of the peril, but has steeled his heart to meet it.
      "The front and back entrances are watched, but with caution we may
      get away through the side window and across the fields.  Once on
      the road we are only two miles from the Ravine where the horses
      are waiting.  By daybreak we should be halfway through the
      mountains."

          "What if we are stopped?" asked Ferrier.

          Hope slapped the revolver butt which protruded from the front
      of his tunic.  "If they are too many for us, we shall take two or
      three of them with us," he said with a sinister smile.

          The lights inside the house had all been extinguished, and
      from the darkened window Ferrier peered over the fields which had
      been his own, and which he was now about to abandon forever.  He
      had long nerved himself to the sacrifice, however, and the thought
      of the honour and happiness of his daughter outweighed any regret
      at his ruined fortunes.  All looked so peaceful and happy, the
      rustling trees and the broad silent stretch of grainland, that it
      was difficult to realize that the spirit of murder lurked through
      it all.  Yet the white face and set expression of the young hunter
      showed that in his approach to the house he had seen enough to
      satisfy him upon that head.

          Ferrier carried the bag of gold and notes, Jefferson Hope had
      the scanty provisions and water, while Lucy had a small bundle
      containing a few of her more valued possessions.  Opening the
      window very slowly and carefully, they waited until a dark cloud
      had somewhat obscured the night, and then one by one passed
      through into the little garden.  With bated breath and crouching
      figures they stumbled across it, and gained the shelter of the
      hedge, which they skirted until they came to the gap which opened
      into the cornfield.  They had just reached this point when the
      young man seized his two companions and dragged them down into the
      shadow, where they lay silent and trembling.

          It was as well that his prairie training had given Jefferson
      Hope the ears of a lynx.  He and his friends had hardly crouched
      down before the melancholy hooting of a mountain owl was heard
      within a few yards of them, which was immediately answered by
      another hoot at a small distance.  At the same moment a vague,
      shadowy figure emerged from the gap for which they had been
      making, and uttered the plaintive signal cry again, on which a
      second man appeared out of the obscurity.

          "To-morrow at midnight," said the first, who appeared to be in
      authority.  "When the whippoorwill calls three times."

          "It is well," returned the other.  "Shall I tell Brother
      Drebber?"

          "Pass it on to him, and from him to the others.  Nine to
      seven!"

          "Seven to five!" repeated the other; and the two figures
      flitted away in different directions.  Their concluding words had
      evidently been some form of sign and countersign.  The instant
      that their footsteps had died away in the distance, Jefferson Hope
      sprang to his feet, and helping his companions through the gap,
      led the way across the fields at the top of his speed, supporting
      and half-carrying the girl when her strength appeared to fail her.

          "Hurry on! hurry on!" he gasped from time to time.  "We are
      through the line of sentinels.  Everything depends on speed.
      Hurry on!"

          Once on the high road, they made rapid progress.  Only once
      did they meet anyone, and then they managed to slip into a field,
      and so avoid recognition.  Before reaching the town the hunter
      branched away into a rugged and narrow footpath which led to the
      mountains.  Two dark, jagged peaks loomed above them through the
      darkness, and the defile which led between them was the Eagle
      Canon in which the horses were awaiting them.  With unerring
      instinct Jefferson Hope picked his way among the great boulders
      and along the bed of a dried-up watercourse, until he came to the
      retired corner screened with rocks, where the faithful animals had
      been picketed.  The girl was placed upon the mule, and old Ferrier
      upon one of the horses, with his money-bag, while Jefferson Hope
      led the other along the precipitous and dangerous path.

          It was a bewildering route for anyone who was not accustomed
      to face Nature in her wildest moods.  On the one side a great crag
      towered up a thousand feet or more, black, stern, and menacing,
      with long basaltic columns upon its rugged surface like the ribs
      of some petrified monster.  On the other hand a wild chaos of
      boulders and debris made all advance impossible.  Between the two
      ran the irregular tracks, so narrow in places that they had to
      travel in Indian file, and so rough that only practised riders
      could have traversed it at all.  Yet, in spite of all dangers and
      difficulties, the hearts of the fugitives were light within them,
      for every step increased the distance between them and the
      terrible despotism from which they were flying.

          They soon had a proof, however, that they were still within
      the jurisdiction of the Saints.  They had reached the very wildest
      and most desolate portion of the pass when the girl gave a
      startled cry, and pointed upwards.  On a rock which overlooked the
      track, showing out dark and plain against the sky, there stood a
      solitary sentinel.  He saw them as soon as they perceived him, and
      his military challenge of "Who goes there?" rang through the
      silent ravine.

          "Travellers for Nevada," said Jefferson Hope, with his hand
      upon the rifle which hung by his saddle.

          They could see the lonely watcher fingering his gun, and
      peering down at them as if dissatisfied at their reply.

          "By whose permission?" he asked.

          "The Holy Four," answered Ferrier.  His Mormon experiences had
      taught him that that was the highest authority to which he could
      refer.

          "Nine to seven," cried the sentinel.

          "Seven to five," returned Jefferson Hope promptly, remembering
      the countersign which he had heard in the garden.

          "Pass, and the Lord go with you," said the voice from above.
      Beyond his post the path broadened out, and the horses were able
      to break into a trot.  Looking back, they could see the solitary
      watcher leaning upon his gun, and knew that they had passed the
      outlying post of the chosen people, and that freedom lay before
      them.

                         A STUDY IN SCARLET -- Part 2
                        Chapter 5:  The Avenging Angels

      All night their course lay through intricate defiles and over
      irregular and rock-strewn paths.  More than once they lost their
      way, but Hope's intimate knowledge of the mountains enabled them
      to regain the track once more.  When morning broke, a scene of
      marvellous though savage beauty lay before them.  In every
      direction the great snow-capped peaks hemmed them in, peeping over
      each other's shoulders to the far horizon.  So steep were the
      rocky banks on either side of them that the larch and the pine
      seemed to be suspended over their heads, and to need only a gust
      of wind to come hurtling down upon them.  Nor was the fear
      entirely an illusion, for the barren valley was thickly strewn
      with trees and boulders which had fallen in a similar manner.
      Even as they passed, a great rock came thundering down with a
      hoarse rattle which woke the echoes in the silent gorges, and
      startled the weary horses into a gallop.

          As the sun rose slowly above the eastern horizon, the caps of
      the great mountains lit up one after the other, like lamps at a
      festival, until they were all ruddy and glowing.  The magnificent
      spectacle cheered the hearts of the three fugitives and gave them
      fresh energy.  At a wild torrent which swept out of a ravine they
      called a halt and watered their horses, while they partook of a
      hasty breakfast.  Lucy and her father would fain have rested
      longer, but Jefferson Hope was inexorable.  "They will be upon our
      track by this time," he said. "Everything depends upon our speed.
      Once safe in Carson, we may rest for the remainder of our lives."

          During the whole of that day they struggled on through the
      defiles, and by evening they calculated that they were more than
      thirty miles from their enemies.  At night-time they chose the
      base of a beetling crag, where the rocks offered some protection
      from the chill wind, and there, huddled together for warmth, they
      enjoyed a few hours' sleep.  Before daybreak, however, they were
      up and on their way once more.  They had seen no signs of any
      pursuers, and Jefferson Hope began to think that they were fairly
      out of the reach of the terrible organization whose enmity they
      had incurred.  He little knew how far that iron grasp could reach,
      or how soon it was to close upon them and crush them.

          About the middle of the second day of their flight their
      scanty store of provisions began to run out.  This gave the hunter
      little uneasiness, however, for there was game to be had among the
      mountains, and he had frequently before had to depend upon his
      rifle for the needs of life.  Choosing a sheltered nook, he piled
      together a few dried branches and made a blazing fire, at which
      his companions might warm themselves, for they were now nearly
      five thousand feet above the sea level, and the air was bitter and
      keen.  Having tethered the horses, and bid Lucy adieu, he threw
      his gun over his shoulder, and set out in search of whatever
      chance might throw in his way.  Looking back, he saw the old man
      and the young girl crouching over the blazing fire, while the
      three animals stood motionless in the background.  Then the
      intervening rocks hid them from his view.

          He walked for a couple of miles through one ravine after
      another without success, though, from the marks upon the bark of
      the trees, and other indications, he judged that there were
      numerous bears in the vicinity.  At last, after two or three
      hours' fruitless search, he was thinking of turning back in
      despair, when casting his eyes upwards he saw a sight which sent a
      thrill of pleasure through his heart.  On the edge of a jutting
      pinnacle, three or four hundred feet above him, there stood a
      creature somewhat resembling a sheep in appearance, but armed with
      a pair of gigantic horns.  The big-horn -- for so it is called --
      was acting, probably, as a guardian over a flock which were
      invisible to the hunter; but fortunately it was heading in the
      opposite direction, and had not perceived him.  Lying on his face,
      he rested his rifle upon a rock, and took a long and steady aim
      before drawing the trigger.  The animal sprang into the air,
      tottered for a moment upon the edge of the precipice, and then
      came crashing down into the valley beneath.

          The creature was too unwieldy to lift, so the hunter contented
      himself with cutting away one haunch and part of the flank.  With
      this trophy over his shoulder, he hastened to retrace his steps,
      for the evening was already drawing in.  He had hardly started,
      however, before he realized the difficulty which faced him.  In
      his eagerness he had wandered far past the ravines which were
      known to him, and it was no easy matter to pick out the path which
      he had taken.  The valley in which he found himself divided and
      sub-divided into many gorges, which were so like each other that
      it was impossible to distinguish one from the other.  He followed
      one for a mile or more until he came to a mountain torrent which
      he was sure that he had never seen before.  Convinced that he had
      taken the wrong turn, he tried another, but with the same result.
      Night was coming on rapidly, and it was almost dark before he at
      last found himself in a defile which was familiar to him.  Even
      then it was no easy matter to keep to the right track, for the
      moon had not yet risen, and the high cliffs on either side made
      the obscurity more profound.  Weighed down with his burden, and
      weary from his exertions, he stumbled along, keeping up his heart
      by the reflection that every step brought him nearer to Lucy, and
      that he carried with him enough to ensure them food for the
      remainder of their journey.

          He had now come to the mouth of the very defile in which he
      had left them.  Even in the darkness he could recognize the
      outline of the cliffs which bounded it.  They must, he reflected,
      be awaiting him anxiously, for he had been absent nearly five
      hours.  In the gladness of his heart he put his hands to his mouth
      and made the glen reecho to a loud halloo as a signal that he was
      coming.  He paused and listened for an answer.  None came save his
      own cry, which clattered up the dreary, silent ravines, and was
      borne back to his ears in countless repetitions.  Again he
      shouted, even louder than before, and again no whisper came back
      from the friends whom he had left such a short time ago.  A vague,
      nameless dread came over him, and he hurried onward frantically,
      dropping the precious food in his agitation.

          When he turned the corner, he came full in sight of the spot
      where the fire had been lit.  There was still a glowing pile of
      wood ashes there, but it had evidently not been tended since his
      departure.  The same dead silence still reigned all round.  With
      his fears all changed to convictions, he hurried on.  There was no
      living creature near the remains of the fire: animals, man,
      maiden, all were gone.  It was only too clear that some sudden and
      terrible disaster had occurred during his absence -- a disaster
      which had embraced them all, and yet had left no traces behind it.

          Bewildered and stunned by this blow, Jefferson Hope felt his
      head spin round, and had to lean upon his rifle to save himself
      from falling.  He was essentially a man of action, however, and
      speedily recovered from his temporary impotence.  Seizing a
      half-consumed piece of wood from the smouldering fire, he blew it
      into a flame, and proceeded with its help to examine the little
      camp.  The ground was all stamped down by the feet of horses,
      showing that a large party of mounted men had overtaken the
      fugitives, and the direction of their tracks proved that they had
      afterwards turned back to Salt Lake City.  Had they carried back
      both of his companions with them?  Jefferson Hope had almost
      persuaded himself that they must have done so, when his eye fell
      upon an object which made every nerve of his body tingle within
      him.  A little way on one side of the camp was a low-lying heap of
      reddish soil, which had assuredly not been there before.  There
      was no mistaking it for anything but a newly dug grave.  As the
      young hunter approached it, he perceived that a stick had been
      planted on it, with a sheet of paper stuck in the cleft fork of
      it.  The inscription upon the paper was brief, but to the point:

                                JOHN FERRIER,

                         FORMERLY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

                           Died August 4th, 1860.

      The sturdy old man, whom he had left so short a time before, was
      gone, then, and this was all his epitaph.  Jefferson Hope looked
      wildly round to see if there was a second grave, but there was no
      sign of one.  Lucy had been carried back by their terrible
      pursuers to fulfil her original destiny, by becoming one of the
      harem of an Elder's son.  As the young fellow realized the
      certainty of her fate, and his own powerlessness to prevent it, he
      wished that he, too, was lying with the old farmer in his last
      silent resting-place.

          Again, however, his active spirit shook off the lethargy which
      springs from despair.  If there was nothing else left to him, he
      could at least devote his life to revenge.  With indomitable
      patience and perseverance, Jefferson Hope possessed also a power
      of sustained vindictiveness, which he may have learned from the
      Indians amongst whom he had lived.  As he stood by the desolate
      fire, he felt that the only one thing which could assuage his
      grief would be thorough and complete retribution, brought by his
      own hand upon his enemies.  His strong will and untiring energy
      should, he determined, be devoted to that one end.  With a grim,
      white face, he retraced his steps to where he had dropped the
      food, and having stirred up the smouldering fire, he cooked enough
      to last him for a few days.  This he made up into a bundle, and,
      tired as he was, he set himself to walk back through the mountains
      upon the track of the Avenging Angels.

          For five days he toiled footsore and weary through the defiles
      which he had already traversed on horseback.  At night he flung
      himself down among the rocks, and snatched a few hours of sleep;
      but before daybreak he was always well on his way.  On the sixth
      day, he reached the Eagle Canon, from which they had commenced
      their ill-fated flight.  Thence he could look down upon the home
      of the Saints.  Worn and exhausted, he leaned upon his rifle and
      shook his gaunt hand fiercely at the silent widespread city
      beneath him.  As he looked at it, he observed that there were
      flags in some of the principal streets, and other signs of
      festivity.  He was still speculating as to what this might mean
      when he heard the clatter of horse's hoofs, and saw a mounted man
      riding towards him.  As he approached, he recognized him as a
      Mormon named Cowper, to whom he had rendered services at different
      times.  He therefore accosted him when he got up to him, with the
      object of finding out what Lucy Ferrier's fate had been.

          "I am Jefferson Hope," he said.  "You remember me."

          The Mormon looked at him with undisguised astonishment --
      indeed, it was difficult to recognize in this tattered, unkempt
      wanderer, with ghastly white face and fierce, wild eyes, the
      spruce young hunter of former days.  Having, however, at last
      satisfied himself as to his identity, the man's surprise changed
      to consternation.

          "You are mad to come here," he cried.  "It is as much as my
      own life is worth to be seen talking with you.  There is a warrant
      against you from the Holy Four for assisting the Ferriers away."

          "I don't fear them, or their warrant," Hope said, earnestly.
      "You must know something of this matter, Cowper.  I conjure you by
      everything you hold dear to answer a few questions.  We have
      always been friends.  For God's sake, don't refuse to answer me."

          "What is it?" the Mormon asked, uneasily.  "Be quick.  The
      very rocks have ears and the trees eyes."

          "What has become of Lucy Ferrier?"

          "She was married yesterday to young Drebber.  Hold up, man,
      hold up; you have no life left in you."

          "Don't mind me," said Hope faintly.  He was white to the very
      lips, and had sunk down on the stone against which he had been
      leaning.  "Married, you say?"

          "Married yesterday -- that's what those flags are for on the
      Endowment House.  There was some words between young Drebber and
      young Stangerson as to which was to have her.  They'd both been in
      the party that followed them, and Stangerson had shot her father,
      which seemed to give him the best claim; but when they argued it
      out in council, Drebber's party was the stronger, so the Prophet
      gave her over to him.  No one won't have her very long though, for
      I saw death in her face yesterday.  She is more like a ghost than
      a woman.  Are you off, then?"

          "Yes, I am off," said Jefferson Hope, who had risen from his
      seat.  His face might have been chiselled out of marble, so hard
      and set was its expression, while its eyes glowed with a baleful
      light.

          "Where are you going?"

          "Never mind," he answered; and, slinging his weapon over his
      shoulder, strode off down the gorge and so away into the heart of
      the mountains to the haunts of the wild beasts.  Amongst them all
      there was none so fierce and so dangerous as himself.

          The prediction of the Mormon was only too well fulfilled.
      Whether it was the terrible death of her father or the effects of
      the hateful marriage into which she had been forced, poor Lucy
      never held up her head again, but pined away and died within a
      month.  Her sottish husband, who had married her principally for
      the sake of John Ferrier's property, did not affect any great
      grief at his bereavement; but his other wives mourned over her,
      and sat up with her the night before the burial, as is the Mormon
      custom.  They were grouped round the bier in the early hours of
      the morning, when, to their inexpressible fear and astonishment,
      the door was flung open, and a savage-looking, weather-beaten man
      in tattered garments strode into the room.  Without a glance or a
      word to the cowering women, he walked up to the white silent
      figure which had once contained the pure soul of Lucy Ferrier.
      Stooping over her, he pressed his lips reverently to her cold
      forehead, and then, snatching up her hand, he took the wedding
      ring from her finger.  "She shall not be buried in that," he cried
      with a fierce snarl, and before an alarm could be raised sprang
      down the stairs and was gone.  So strange and so brief was the
      episode that the watchers might have found it hard to believe it
      themselves or persuade other people of it, had it not been for the
      undeniable fact that the circlet of gold which marked her as
      having been a bride had disappeared.

          For some months Jefferson Hope lingered among the mountains,
      leading a strange, wild life, and nursing in his heart the fierce
      desire for vengeance which possessed him.  Tales were told in the
      city of the weird figure which was seen prowling about the
      suburbs, and which haunted the lonely mountain gorges.  Once a
      bullet whistled through Stangerson's window and flattened itself
      upon the wall within a foot of him.  On another occasion, as
      Drebber passed under a cliff a great boulder crashed down on him,
      and he only escaped a terrible death by throwing himself upon his
      face.  The two young Mormons were not long in discovering the
      reason of these attempts upon their lives, and led repeated
      expeditions into the mountains in the hope of capturing or killing
      their enemy, but always without success.  Then they adopted the
      precaution of never going out alone or after nightfall, and of
      having their houses guarded.  After a time they were able to relax
      these measures, for nothing was either heard or seen of their
      opponent, and they hoped that time had cooled his vindictiveness.

          Far from doing so, it had, if anything, augmented it.  The
      hunter's mind was of a hard, unyielding nature, and the
      predominant idea of revenge had taken such complete possession of
      it that there was no room for any other emotion.  He was, however,
      above all things, practical.  He soon realized that even his iron
      constitution could not stand the incessant strain which he was
      putting upon it.  Exposure and want of wholesome food were wearing
      him out.  If he died like a dog among the mountains, what was to
      become of his revenge then?  And yet such a death was sure to
      overtake him if he persisted.  He felt that that was to play his
      enemy's game, so he reluctantly returned to the old Nevada mines,
      there to recruit his health and to amass money enough to allow him
      to pursue his object without privation.

          His intention had been to be absent a year at the most, but a
      combination of unforeseen circumstances prevented his leaving the
      mines for nearly five.  At the end of that time, however, his
      memory of his wrongs and his craving for revenge were quite as
      keen as on that memorable night when he had stood by John
      Ferrier's grave.  Disguised, and under an assumed name, he
      returned to Salt Lake City, careless what became of his own life,
      as long as he obtained what he knew to be justice.  There he found
      evil tidings awaiting him.  There had been a schism among the
      Chosen People a few months before, some of the younger members of
      the Church having rebelled against the authority of the Elders,
      and the result had been the secession of a certain number of the
      malcontents, who had left Utah and become Gentiles.  Among these
      had been Drebber and Stangerson; and no one knew whither they had
      gone.  Rumour reported that Drebber had managed to convert a large
      part of his property into money, and that he had departed a
      wealthy man, while his companion, Stangerson, was comparatively
      poor.  There was no clue at all, however, as to their whereabouts.

          Many a man, however vindictive, would have abandoned all
      thought of revenge in the face of such a difficulty, but Jefferson
      Hope never faltered for a moment.  With the small competence he
      possessed, eked out by such employment as he could pick up, he
      travelled from town to town through the United States in quest of
      his enemies.  Year passed into year, his black hair turned
      grizzled, but still he wandered on, a human bloodhound, with his
      mind wholly set upon the one object to which he had devoted his
      life.  At last his perseverance was rewarded.  It was but a glance
      of a face in a window, but that one glance told him that Cleveland
      in Ohio possessed the men whom he was in pursuit of.  He returned
      to his miserable lodgings with his plan of vengeance all arranged.
      It chanced, however, that Drebber, looking from his window, had
      recognized the vagrant in the street, and had read murder in his
      eyes.  He hurried before a justice of the peace accompanied by
      Stangerson, who had become his private secretary, and represented
      to him that they were in danger of their lives from the jealousy
      and hatred of an old rival.  That evening Jefferson Hope was taken
      into custody, and not being able to find sureties, was detained
      for some weeks.  When at last he was liberated it was only to find
      that Drebber's house was deserted, and that he and his secretary
      had departed for Europe.

          Again the avenger had been foiled, and again his concentrated
      hatred urged him to continue the pursuit.  Funds were wanting,
      however, and for some time he had to return to work, saving every
      dollar for his approaching journey.  At last, having collected
      enough to keep life in him, he departed for Europe, and tracked
      his enemies from city to city, working his way in any menial
      capacity, but never overtaking the fugitives.  When he reached St.
      Petersburg, they had departed for Paris; and when he followed them
      there, he learned that they had just set off for Copenhagen.  At
      the Danish capital he was again a few days late, for they had
      journeyed on to London, where he at last succeeded in running them
      to earth.  As to what occurred there, we cannot do better than
      quote the old hunter's own account, as duly recorded in Dr.
      Watson's Journal, to which we are already under such obligations.


                         A STUDY IN SCARLET -- Part 2
     Chapter 6:  A Continuation of the Reminiscences of John Watson, M.D.

      Our prisoner's furious resistance did not apparently indicate any
      ferocity in his disposition towards ourselves, for on finding
      himself powerless, he smiled in an affable manner, and expressed
      his hopes that he had not hurt any of us in the scuffle.  "I guess
      you're going to take me to the police-station," he remarked to
      Sherlock Holmes.  "My cab's at the door.  If you'll loose my legs
      I'll walk down to it.  I'm not so light to lift as I used to be."

          Gregson and Lestrade exchanged glances, as if they thought
      this proposition rather a bold one; but Holmes at once took the
      prisoner at his word, and loosened the towel which we had bound
      round his ankles.  He rose and stretched his legs, as though to
      assure himself that they were free once more.  I remember that I
      thought to myself, as I eyed him, that I had seldom seen a more
      powerfully built man; and his dark, sunburned face bore an
      expression of determination and energy which was as formidable as
      his personal strength.

          "If there's a vacant place for a chief of the police, I reckon
      you are the man for it," he said, gazing with undisguised
      admiration at my fellow-lodger.  "The way you kept on my trail was
      a caution."

          "You had better come with me," said Holmes to the two
      detectives.

          "I can drive you," said Lestrade.

          "Good! and Gregson can come inside with me.  You too, Doctor.
      You have taken an interest in the case, and may as well stick to
      us."

          I assented gladly, and we all descended together.  Our
      prisoner made no attempt at escape, but stepped calmly into the
      cab which had been his, and we followed him.  Lestrade mounted the
      box, whipped up the horse, and brought us in a very short time to
      our destination.  We were ushered into a small chamber, where a
      police inspector noted down our prisoner's name and the names of
      the men with whose murder he had been charged.  The official was a
      white-faced, unemotional man, who went through his duties in a
      dull, mechanical way.  "The prisoner will be put before the
      magistrates in the course of the week," he said; "in the meantime,
      Mr. Jefferson Hope, have you anything that you wish to say?  I
      must warn you that your words will be taken down, and may be used
      against you."

          "I've got a good deal to say," our prisoner said slowly.  "I
      want to tell you gentlemen all about it."

          "Hadn't you better reserve that for your trial?" asked the
      inspector.

          "I may never be tried," he answered.  "You needn't look
      startled.  It isn't suicide I am thinking of.  Are you a doctor?"
      He turned his fierce dark eyes upon me as he asked this last
      question.

          "Yes, I am," I answered.

          "Then put your hand here," he said, with a smile, motioning
      with his manacled wrists towards his chest.

          I did so; and became at once conscious of an extraordinary
      throbbing and commotion which was going on inside.  The walls of
      his chest seemed to thrill and quiver as a frail building would do
      inside when some powerful engine was at work.  In the silence of
      the room I could hear a dull humming and buzzing noise which
      proceeded from the same source.

          "Why," I cried, "you have an aortic aneurism!"

          "That's what they call it," he said, placidly.  "I went to a
      doctor last week about it, and he told me that it is bound to
      burst before many days passed.  It has been getting worse for
      years.  I got it from overexposure and under-feeding among the
      Salt Lake Mountains.  I've done my work now, and I don't care how
      soon I go, but I should like to leave some account of the business
      behind me.  I don't want to be remembered as a common cut-throat."

          The inspector and the two detectives had a hurried discussion
      as to the advisability of allowing him to tell his story.

          "Do you consider, Doctor, that there is immediate danger?" the
      former asked.

          "Most certainly there is," I answered.

          "In that case it is clearly our duty, in the interests of
      justice, to take his statement," said the inspector.  "You are at
      liberty, sir, to give your account, which I again warn you will be
      taken down."

          "I'Il sit down, with your leave," the prisoner said, suiting
      the action to the word.  "This aneurism of mine makes me easily
      tired, and the tussle we had half an hour ago has not mended
      matters.  I'm on the brink of the grave, and I am not likely to
      lie to you.  Every word I say is the absolute truth, and how you
      use it is a matter of no consequence to me."

          With these words, Jefferson Hope leaned back in his chair and
      began the following remarkable statement.  He spoke in a calm and
      methodical manner, as though the events which he narrated were
      commonplace enough.  I can vouch for the accuracy of the subjoined
      account, for I have had access to Lestrade's notebook, in which
      the prisoner's words were taken down exactly as they were uttered.

          "It don't much matter to you why I hated these men," he said;
      "it's enough that they were guilty of the death of two human
      beings -- a father and daughter -- and that they had, therefore,
      forfeited their own lives.  After the lapse of time that has
      passed since their crime, it was impossible for me to secure a
      conviction against them in any court.  I knew of their guilt
      though, and I determined that I should be judge, jury, and
      executioner all rolled into one.  You'd have done the same, if you
      have any manhood in you, if you had been in my place.

          "That girl that I spoke of was to have married me twenty years
      ago.  She was forced into marrying that same Drebber, and broke
      her heart over it.  I took the marriage ring from her dead finger,
      and I vowed that his dying eyes should rest upon that very ring,
      and that his last thoughts should be of the crime for which he was
      punished.  I have carried it about with me, and have followed him
      and his accomplice over two continents until I caught them.  They
      thought to tire me out, but they could not do it.  If I die
      tomorrow, as is likely enough, I die knowing that my work in this
      world is done, and well done.  They have perished, and by my hand.
      There is nothing left for me to hope for, or to desire.

          "They were rich and I was poor, so that it was no easy matter
      for me to follow them.  When I got to London my pocket was about
      empty, and I found that I must turn my hand to something for my
      living.  Driving and riding are as natural to me as walking, so I
      applied at a cab-owner's office, and soon got employment.  I was
      to bring a certain sum a week to the owner, and whatever was over
      that I might keep for myself.  There was seldom much over, but I
      managed to scrape along somehow.  The hardest job was to learn my
      way about, for I reckon that of all the mazes that ever were
      contrived, this city is the most confusing.  I had a map beside
      me, though, and when once I had spotted the principal hotels and
      stations, I got on pretty well.

          "It was some time before I found out where my two gentlemen
      were living; but I inquired and inquired until at last I dropped
      across them.  They were at a boarding-house at Camberwell, over on
      the other side of the river.  When once I found them out, I knew
      that I had them at my mercy.  I had grown my beard, and there was
      no chance of their recognizing me.  I would dog them and follow
      them until I saw my opportunity.  I was determined that they
      should not escape me again.

          "They were very near doing it for all that.  Go where they
      would about London, I was always at their heels.  Sometimes I
      followed them on my cab, and sometimes on foot, but the former was
      the best, for then they could not get away from me.  It was only
      early in the morning or late at night that I could earn anything,
      so that I began to get behindhand with my employer.  I did not
      mind that, however, as long as I could lay my hand upon the men I
      wanted.

          "They were very cunning, though.  They must have thought that
      there was some chance of their being followed, for they would
      never go out alone, and never after nightfall.  During two weeks I
      drove behind them every day, and never once saw them separate.
      Drebber himself was drunk half the time, but Stangerson was not to
      be caught napping.  I watched them late and early, but never saw
      the ghost of a chance; but I was not discouraged, for something
      told me that the hour had almost come.  My only fear was that this
      thing in my chest might burst a little too soon and leave my work
      undone.

          "At last, one evening I was driving up and down Torquay
      Terrace, as the street was called in which they boarded, when I
      saw a cab drive up to their door.  Presently some luggage was
      brought out and after a time Drebber and Stangerson followed it,
      and drove off.  I whipped up my horse and kept within sight of
      them, feeling very ill at ease, for I feared that they were going
      to shift their quarters.  At Euston Station they got out, and I
      left a boy to hold my horse and followed them on to the platform.
      I heard them ask for the Liverpool train, and the guard answer
      that one had just gone, and there would not be another for some
      hours.  Stangerson seemed to be put out at that, but Drebber was
      rather pleased than otherwise.  I got so close to them in the
      bustle that I could hear every word that passed between them.
      Drebber said that he had a little business of his own to do, and
      that if the other would wait for him he would soon rejoin him.
      His companion remonstrated with him, and reminded him that they
      had resolved to stick together.  Drebber answered that the matter
      was a delicate one, and that he must go alone.  I could not catch
      what Stangerson said to that, but the other burst out swearing,
      and reminded him that he was nothing more than his paid servant,
      and that he must not presume to dictate to him.  On that the
      secretary gave it up as a bad job, and simply bargained with him
      that if he missed the last train he should rejoin him at
      Halliday's Private Hotel; to which Drebber answered that he would
      be back on the platform before eleven, and made his way out of the
      station.

          "The moment for which I had waited so long had at last come.
      I had my enemies within my power.  Together they could protect
      each other, but singly they were at my mercy.  I did not act,
      however, with undue precipitation.  My plans were already formed.
      There is no satisfaction in vengeance unless the offender has time
      to realize who it is that strikes him, and why retribution has
      come upon him.  I had my plans arranged by which I should have the
      opportunity of making the man who had wronged me understand that
      his old sin had found him out.  It chanced that some days before a
      gentleman who had been engaged in looking over some houses in the
      Brixton Road had dropped the key of one of them in my carriage.
      It was claimed that same evening, and returned; but in the
      interval I had taken a moulding of it, and had a duplicate
      constructed.  By means of this I had access to at least one spot
      in this great city where I could rely upon being free from
      interruption.  How to get Drebber to that house was the difficult
      problem which I had now to solve.

          "He walked down the road and went into one or two liquor
      shops, staying for nearly half an hour in the last of them.  When
      he came out, he staggered in his walk, and was evidently pretty
      well on.  There was a hansom just in front of me, and he hailed
      it.  I followed it so close that the nose of my horse was within a
      yard of his driver the whole way.  We rattled across Waterloo
      Bridge and through miles of streets, until, to my astonishment, we
      found ourselves back in the terrace in which he had boarded.  I
      could not imagine what his intention was in returning there; but I
      went on and pulled up my cab a hundred yards or so from the house.
      He entered it, and his hansom drove away.  Give me a glass of
      water, if you please.  My mouth gets dry with the talking."

          I handed him the glass, and he drank it down.

          "That's better," he said.  "Well, I waited for a quarter of an
      hour, or more, when suddenly there came a noise like people
      struggling inside the house.  Next moment the door was flung open
      and two men appeared, one of whom was Drebber, and the other was a
      young chap whom I had never seen before.  This fellow had Drebber
      by the collar, and when they came to the head of the steps he gave
      him a shove and a kick which sent him half across the road.  `You
      hound!' he cried, shaking his stick at him; `I'll teach you to
      insult an honest girl!'  He was so hot that I think he would have
      thrashed Drebber with his cudgel, only that the cur staggered away
      down the road as fast as his legs would carry him.  He ran as far
      as the corner, and then seeing my cab, he hailed me and jumped in.
      `Drive me to Halliday's Private Hotel,' said he.

          "When I had him fairly inside my cab, my heart jumped so with
      joy that I feared lest at this last moment my aneurism might go
      wrong.  I drove along slowly, weighing in my own mind what it was
      best to do.  I might take him right out into the country, and
      there in some deserted lane have my last interview with him.  I
      had almost decided upon this, when he solved the problem for me.
      The craze for drink had seized him again, and he ordered me to
      pull up outside a gin palace.  He went in, leaving word that I
      should wait for him.  There he remained until closing time, and
      when he came out he was so far gone that I knew the game was in my
      own hands.

          "Don't imagine that I intended to kill him in cold blood.  It
      would only have been rigid justice if I had done so, but I could
      not bring myself to do it.  I had long determined that he should
      have a show for his life if he chose to take advantage of it.
      Among the many billets which I have filled in America during my
      wandering life, I was once janitor and sweeper-out of the
      laboratory at York College.  One day the professor was lecturing
      on poisons, and he showed his students some alkaloid, as he called
      it, which he had extracted from some South American arrow poison,
      and which was so powerful that the least grain meant instant
      death.  I spotted the bottle in which this preparation was kept,
      and when they were all gone, I helped myself to a little of it.  I
      was a fairly good dispenser, so I worked this alkaloid into small,
      soluble pills, and each pill I put in a box with a similar pill
      made without the poison.  I determined at the time that when I had
      my chance my gentlemen should each have a draw out of one of these
      boxes, while I ate the pill that remained.  It would be quite as
      deadly and a good deal less noisy than firing across a
      handkerchief.  From that day I had always my pill boxes about with
      me, and the time had now come when I was to use them.

          "It was nearer one than twelve, and a wild, bleak night,
      blowing hard and raining in torrents.  Dismal as it was outside, I
      was glad within -- so glad that I could have shouted out from pure
      exultation.  If any of you gentlemen have ever pined for a thing,
      and longed for it during twenty long years, and then suddenly
      found it within your reach, you would understand my feelings.  I
      lit a cigar, and puffed at it to steady my nerves, but my hands
      were trembling and my temples throbbing with excitement.  As I
      drove, I could see old John Ferrier and sweet Lucy looking at me
      out of the darkness and smiling at me, just as plain as I see you
      all in this room.  All the way they were ahead of me, one on each
      side of the horse until I pulled up at the house in the Brixton
      Road.

          "There was not a soul to be seen, nor a sound to be heard,
      except the dripping of the rain.  When I looked in at the window,
      I found Drebber all huddled together in a drunken sleep.  I shook
      him by the arm, `It's time to get out,' I said.

          "`All right, cabby,' said he.

          "I suppose he thought we had come to the hotel that he had
      mentioned, for he got out without another word, and followed me
      down the garden.  I had to walk beside him to keep him steady, for
      he was still a little top-heavy.  When we came to the door, I
      opened it and led aim into the front room.  I give you my word
      that all the way, the father and the daughter were walking in
      front of us.

          "`Its infernally dark,' said he, stamping about.

          "`We'll soon have a light,' I said, striking a match and
      putting it to a wax candle which I had brought with me.  `Now,
      Enoch Drebber,' I continued, turning to him, and holding the light
      to my own face, `who am I?'

          "He gazed at me with bleared, drunken eyes for a moment, and
      then I saw a honor spring up in them, and convulse his whole
      features, which showed me that he knew me.  He staggered back with
      a livid face, and I saw the perspiration break out upon his brow,
      while his teeth chattered in his head.  At the sight I leaned my
      back against the door and laughed loud and long.  I had always
      known that vengeance would be sweet, but I had never hoped for the
      contentment of soul which now possessed me.

          "`You dog!' I said; `I have hunted you from Salt Lake City to
      St. Petersburg, and you have always escaped me.  Now, at last your
      wanderings have come to an end, for either you or I shall never
      see to-morrow's sun rise.'  He shrunk still farther away as I
      spoke, and I could see on his face that he thought I was mad.  So
      I was for the time.  The pulses in my temples beat like
      sledge-hammers, and I believe I would have had a fit of some sort
      if the blood had not gushed from my nose and relieved me.

          "`What do you think of Lucy Ferrier now?' I cried, locking the
      door, and shaking the key in his face.  `Punishment has been slow
      in coming, but it has overtaken you at last.'  I saw his coward
      lips tremble as I spoke.  He would have begged for his life, but
      he knew well that it was useless.

          "`Would you murder me?' he stammered.

          "`There is no murder,' I answered.  `Who talk's of murdering a
      mad dog?  What mercy had you upon my poor darling, when you
      dragged her from her slaughtered father, and bore her away to your
      accursed and shameless harem?'

          "`It was not I who killed her father,' he cried.

          "`But it was you who broke her innocent heart,' I shrieked,
      thrusting the box before him.  `Let the high God judge between us.
      Choose and eat.  There is death in one and life in the other.  I
      shall take what you leave.  Let us see if there is justice upon
      the earth, or if we are ruled by chance.'

          "He cowered away with wild cries and prayers for mercy, but I
      drew my knife and held it to his throat until he had obeyed me.
      Then I swallowed the other, and we stood facing one another in
      silence for a minute or more, waiting to see which was to live and
      which was to die.  Shall I ever forget the look which came over
      his face when the first warning pangs told him that the poison was
      in his system?  I laughed as I saw it, and held Lucy's marriage
      ring in front of his eyes.  It was but for a moment, for the
      action of the alkaloid is rapid.  A spasm of pain contorted his
      features; he threw his hands out in front of him, staggered, and
      then, with a hoarse cry, fell heavily upon the floor.  I turned
      him over with my foot, and placed my hand upon his heart.  There
      was no movement.  He was dead!

          "The blood had been streaming from my nose, but I had taken no
      notice of it.  I don't know what it was that put it into my head
      to write upon the wall with it.  Perhaps it was some mischievous
      idea of setting the police upon a wrong track, for I felt
      light-hearted and cheerful.  I remember a German being found in
      New York with RACHE written up above him, and it was argued at the
      time in the newspapers that the secret societies must have done
      it.  I guessed that what puzzled the New Yorkers would puzzle the
      Londoners, so I dipped my finger in my own blood and printed it on
      a convenient place on the wall.  Then I walked down to my cab and
      found that there was nobody about, and that the night was still
      very wild.  I had driven some distance, when I put my hand into
      the pocket in which I usually kept Lucy's ring, and found that it
      was not there.  I was thunderstruck at this, for it was the only
      memento that I had of her.  Thinking that I might have dropped it
      when I stooped over Drebber's body, I drove back, and leaving my
      cab in a side street, I went boldly up to the house -- for I was
      ready to dare anything rather than lose the ring.  When I arrived
      there, I walked right into the arms of a police-officer who was
      coming out, and only managed to disarm his suspicions by
      pretending to be hopelessly drunk.

          "That was how Enoch Drebber came to his end.  All I had to do
      then was to do as much for Stangerson, and so pay off John
      Ferrier's debt.  I knew that he was staying at Halliday's Private
      Hotel, and I hung about all day, but he never came out.  I fancy
      that he suspected something when Drebber failed to put in an
      appearance.  He was cunning, was Stangerson, and always on his
      guard.  If he thought he could keep me off by staying indoors he
      was very much mistaken.  I soon found out which was the window of
      his bedroom, and early next morning I took advantage of some
      ladders which were lying in the lane behind the hotel, and so made
      my way into his room in the gray of the dawn.  I woke him up and
      told him that the hour had come when he was to answer for the life
      he had taken so long before.  I described Drebber's death to him,
      and I gave him the same choice of the poisoned pills.  Instead of
      grasping at the chance of safety which that offered him, he sprang
      from his bed and flew at my throat.  In self-defence I stabbed him
      to the heart.  It would have been the same in any case, for
      Providence would never have allowed his guilty hand to pick out
      anything but the poison.

          "I have little more to say, and it's as well, for I am about
      done up.  I went on cabbing it for a day or so, intending to keep
      at it until I could save enough to take me back to America.  I was
      standing in the yard when a ragged youngster asked if there was a
      cabby there called Jefferson Hope, and said that his cab was
      wanted by a gentleman at 221B, Baker Street.  I went round
      suspecting no harm, and the next thing I knew, this young man here
      had the bracelets on my wrists, and as neatly shackled as ever I
      saw in my life.  That's the whole of my story, gentlemen.  You may
      consider me to be a murderer; but I hold that I am just as much an
      officer of justice as you are."

          So thrilling had the man's narrative been and his manner was
      so impressive that we had sat silent and absorbed.  Even the
      professional detectives, blase they were in every detail of crime,
      appeared to be keenly interested in the man's story.  When he
      finished, we sat for some minutes in a stillness which was only
      broken by the scratching of Lestrade's pencil as he gave the
      finishing touches to his shorthand account.

          "There is only one point on which I should like a little more
      information," Sherlock Holmes said at last.  "Who was your
      accomplice who came for the ring which I advertised?"

          The prisoner winked at my friend jocosely.  "I can tell my own
      secrets," he said, "but I don't get other people into trouble.  I
      saw your advertisement, and I thought it might be a plant, or it
      might be the ring which I wanted.  My friend volunteered to go and
      see.  I think you'll own he did it smartly."

          "Not a doubt of that," said Holmes, heartily.

          "Now, gentlemen," the inspector remarked gravely, "the forms
      of the law must be complied with.  On Thursday the prisoner will
      be brought before the magistrates, and your attendance will be
      required.  Until then I will be responsible for him."  He rang the
      bell as he spoke, and Jefferson Hope was led off by a couple of
      warders, while my friend and I made our way out of the station and
      took a cab back to Baker Street.

                         A STUDY IN SCARLET -- Part 2
                          Chapter 7:  The Conclusion
      We had all been warned to appear before the magistrates upon the
      Thursday; but when the Thursday came there was no occasion for our
      testimony.  A higher Judge had taken the matter in hand, and
      Jefferson Hope had been summoned before a tribunal where strict
      justice would be meted out to him.  On the very night after his
      capture the aneurism burst, and he was found in the morning
      stretched upon the floor of the cell, with a placid smile upon his
      face, as though he had been able in his dying moments to look back
      upon a useful life, and on work well done.

          "Gregson and Lestrade will be wild about his death," Holmes
      remarked, as we chatted it over next evening.  "Where will their
      grand advertisement be now?"

          "I don't see that they had very much to do with his capture,"
      I answered.

          "What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence,"
      returned my companion, bitterly.  "The question is, what can you
      make people believe that you have done?  Never mind," he
      continued, more brightly, after a pause.  "I would not have missed
      the investigation for anything.  There has been no better case
      within my recollection.  Simple as it was, there were several most
      instructive points about it."

          "Simple!" I ejaculated.

          "Well, really, it can hardly be described as otherwise," said
      Sherlock Holmes, smiling at my surprise.  "The proof of its
      intrinsic simplicity is, that without any help save a few very
      ordinary deductions I was able to lay my hand upon the criminal
      within three days."

          "That is true," said I.

          "I have already explained to you that what is out of the
      common is usually a guide rather than a hindrance.  In solving a
      problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason
      backward.  That is a very useful accomplishment, and a very easy
      one, but people do not practise it much.  In the everyday affairs
      of life it is more useful to reason forward, and so the other
      comes to be neglected.  There are fifty who can reason
      synthetically for one who can reason analytically."

          "I confess," said I, "that I do not quite follow you."

          "I hardly expected that you would.  Let me see if I can make
      it clearer.  Most people, if you describe a train of events to
      them, will tell you what the result would be.  They can put those
      events together in their minds, and argue from them that something
      will come to pass.  There are few people, however, who, if you
      told them a result, would be able to evolve from their own inner
      consciousness what the steps were which led up to that result.
      This power is what I mean when I talk of reasoning backward, or
      analytically."

          "I understand," said I.

          "Now this was a case in which you were given the result and
      had to find everything else for yourself.  Now let me endeavour to
      show you the different steps in my reasoning.  To begin at the
      beginning.  I approached the house, as you know, on foot, and with
      my mind entirely free from all impressions.  I naturally began by
      examining the roadway, and there, as I have already explained to
      you, I saw clearly the marks of a cab, which, I ascertained by
      inquiry, must have been there during the night.  I satisfied
      myself that it was a cab and not a private carriage by the narrow
      gauge of the wheels.  The ordinary London growler is considerably
      less wide than a gentleman's brougham.

          "This was the first point gained.  I then walked slowly down
      the garden path, which happened to be composed of a clay soil,
      peculiarly suitable for taking impressions.  No doubt it appeared
      to you to be a mere trampled line of slush, but to my trained eyes
      every mark upon its surface had a meaning.  There is no branch of
      detective science which is so important and so much neglected as
      the art of tracing footsteps.  Happily, I have always laid great
      stress upon it, and much practice has made it second nature to me.
      I saw the heavy footmarks of the constables, but I saw also the
      track of the two men who had first passed through the garden.  It
      was easy to tell that they had been before the others, because in
      places their marks had been entirely obliterated by the others
      coming upon the top of them.  In this way my second link was
      formed, which told me that the nocturnal visitors were two in
      number, one remarkable for his height (as I calculated from the
      length of his stride), and the other fashionably dressed, to judge
      from the small and elegant impression left by his boots.

          "On entering the house this last inference was confirmed.  My
      well-booted man lay before me.  The tall one, then, had done the
      murder, if murder there was.  There was no wound upon the dead
      man's person, but the agitated expression upon his face assured me
      that he had foreseen his fate before it came upon him.  Men who
      die from heart disease, or any sudden natural cause, never by any
      chance exhibit agitation upon their features.  Having sniffed the
      dead man's lips, I detected a slightly sour smell, and I came to
      the conclusion that he had had poison forced upon him.  Again, I
      argued that it had been forced upon him from the hatred and fear
      expressed upon his face.  By the method of exclusion, I had
      arrived at this result, for no other hypothesis would meet the
      facts.  Do not imagine that it was a very unheard-of idea.  The
      forcible administration of poison is by no means a new thing in
      criminal annals.  The cases of Dolsky in Odessa, and of Leturier
      in Montpellier, will occur at once to any toxicologist.

          "And now came the great question as to the reason why.
      Robbery had not been the object of the murder, for nothing was
      taken.  Was it politics, then, or was it a woman?  That was the
      question which confronted me.  I was inclined from the first to
      the latter supposition.  Political assassins are only too glad to
      do their work and to fly.  This murder had, on the contrary, been
      done most deliberately, and the perpetrator had left his tracks
      all over the room, showing that he had been there all the time.
      It must have been a private wrong, and not a political one, which
      called for such a methodical revenge.  When the inscription was
      discovered upon the wall, I was more inclined than ever to my
      opinion.  The thing was too evidently a blind.  When the ring was
      found, however, it settled the question.  Clearly the murderer had
      used it to remind his victim of some dead or absent woman.  It was
      at this point that I asked Gregson whether he had inquired in his
      telegram to Cleveland as to any particular point in Mr. Drebber's
      former career.  He answered, you remember, in the negative.

          "I then proceeded to make a careful examination of the room,
      which confirmed me in my opinion as to the murderer's height, and
      furnished me with the additional details as to the Trichinopoly
      cigar and the length of his nails.  I had already come to the
      conclusion, since there were no signs of a struggle, that the
      blood which covered the floor had burst from the murderer's nose
      in his excitement.  I could perceive that the track of blood
      coincided with the track of his feet.  It is seldom that any man,
      unless he is very full-blooded, breaks out in this way through
      emotion, so I hazarded the opinion that the criminal was probably
      a robust and ruddy-faced man.  Events proved that I had judged
      correctly.

          "Having left the house, I proceeded to do what Gregson had
      neglected.  I telegraphed to the head of the police at Cleveland,
      limiting my inquiry to the circumstances connected with the
      marriage of Enoch Drebber.  The answer was conclusive.  It told me
      that Drebber had already applied for the protection of the law
      against an old rival in love, named Jefferson Hope, and that this
      same Hope was at present in Europe.  I knew now that I held the
      clue to the mystery in my hand, and all that remained was to
      secure the murderer.

          "I had already determined in my own mind that the man who had
      walked into the house with Drebber was none other than the man who
      had driven the cab.  The marks in the road showed me that the
      horse had wandered on in a way which would have been impossible
      had there been anyone in charge of it.  Where, then, could the
      driver be, unless he were inside the house?  Again, it is absurd
      to suppose that any sane man would carry out a deliberate crime
      under the very eyes, as it were, of a third person, who was sure
      to betray him.  Lastly, supposing one man wished to dog another
      through London, what better means could he adopt than to turn
      cabdriver?  All these considerations led me to the irresistible
      conclusion that Jefferson Hope was to be found among the jarveys
      of the Metropolis.

          "If he had been one, there was no reason to believe that he
      had ceased to be.  On the contrary, from his point of view, any
      sudden change would be likely to draw attention to himself.  He
      would probably, for a time at least, continue to perform his
      duties.  There was no reason to suppose that he was going under an
      assumed name.  Why should he change his name in a country where no
      one knew his original one?  I therefore organized my street Arab
      detective corps, and sent them systematically to every cab
      proprietor in London until they ferreted out the man that I
      wanted.  How well they succeeded, and how quickly I took advantage
      of it, are still fresh in your recollection.  The murder of
      Stangerson was an incident which was entirely unexpected, but
      which could hardly in any case have been prevented.  Through it,
      as you know, I came into possession of the pills, the existence of
      which I had already surmised.  You see, the whole thing is a chain
      of logical sequences without a break or flaw."

          "It is wonderful!" I cried.  "Your merits should be publicly
      recognized.  You should publish an account of the case.  If you
      won't, I will for you."

          "You may do what you like, Doctor," he answered.  "See here!"
      he continued, handing a paper over to me, "look at this!"

          It was the Echo for the day, and the paragraph to which he
      pointed was devoted to the case in question.

          "The public," it said, "have lost a sensational treat through
      the sudden death of the man Hope, who was suspected of the murder
      of Mr. Enoch Drebber and of Mr. Joseph Stangerson.  The details of
      the case will probably be never known now, though we are informed
      upon good authority that the crime was the result of an
      old-standing and romantic feud, in which love and Mormonism bore a
      part.  It seems that both the victims belonged, in their younger
      days, to the Latter Day Saints, and Hope, the deceased prisoner,
      hails also from Salt Lake City.  If the case has had no other
      effect, it, at least, brings out in the most striking manner the
      efficiency of our detective police force, and will serve as a
      lesson to all foreigners that they will do wisely to settle their
      feuds at home, and not to carry them on to British soil.  It is an
      open secret that the credit of this smart capture belongs entirely
      to the well-known Scotland Yard officials, Messrs. Lestrade and
      Gregson.  The man was apprehended, it appears, in the rooms of a
      certain Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who has himself, as an amateur, shown
      some talent in the detective line and who, with such instructors,
      may hope in time to attain to some degree of their skill.  It is
      expected that a testimonial of some sort will be presented to the
      two officers as a fitting recognition of their services."

          "Didn't I tell you so when we started?" cried Sherlock Holmes
      with a laugh.  "That's the result of all our Study in Scarlet:  to
      get them a testimonial!"

          "Never mind," I answered; "I have all the facts in my journal,
      and the public shall know them.  In the meantime you must make
      yourself contented by the consciousness of success, like the Roman
      miser --
                      "Poplus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo
                Ipse domi simul ac nummos contemplar in arca."