Valley of Fear
Valley of Fear
Valley of Fear
txt
PART 1
The Tragedy of Birlstone
Chapter 1
The Warning
534 C2 13 127 36 31 4 17 21 41
DOUGLAS 109 293 5 37 BIRLSTONE
26 BIRLSTONE 9 47 171
Holmes sat for some little time twisting this letter between his
fingers, and frowning, as he stared into the fire.
"After all," he said at last, "there may be nothing in it. It
may be only his guilty conscience. Knowing himself to be a
traitor, he may have read the accusation in the other's eyes."
"The other being, I presume, Professor Moriarty."
"No less! When any of that party talk about 'He' you know
whom they mean. There is one predominant 'He' for all of
them."
"But what can he do?"
"Hum! That's a large question. When you have one of the
first brains of Europe up against you, and all the powers of
darkness at his back, there are infinite possibilities. Anyhow,
Friend Porlock is evidently scared out of his senses -- kindly com-
pare the writing in the note to that upon its envelope; which was
done, he tells us, before this ill-omened visit. The one is clear
and firm. The other hardly legible."
"Why did he write at all? Why did he not simply drop it?"
"Because he feared I would make some inquiry after him in
that case, and possibly bring trouble on him."
"No doubt," said I. "Of course." I had picked up the
original cipher message and was bending my brows over it. "It's
pretty maddening to think that an important secret may lie here on
this slip of paper, and that it is beyond human power to penetrate
it."
Sherlock Holmes had pushed away his untasted breakfast and
lit the unsavoury pipe which was the companion of his deepest
meditations. "I wonder!" said he, leaning back and staring at
the ceiling. "Perhaps there are points which have escaped your
Machiavellian intellect. Let us consider the problem in the light
of pure reason. This man's reference is to a book. That is our
point of departure."
"A somewhat vague one."
"Let us see then if we can narrow it down. As I focus my
mind upon it, it seems rather less impenetrable. What indications
have we as to this book?"
"None."
"Well, well, it is surely not quite so bad as that. The cipher
message begins with a large 534, does it not? We may take it as
a working hypothesis that 534 is the particular page to which the
cipher refers. So our book has already become a large book
which is surely something gained. What other indications have
we as to the nature of this large book? The next sign is C2. What
do you make of that, Watson?"
"Chapter the second, no doubt."
"Hardly that, Watson. You will, I am sure, agree with me
that if the page be given, the number of the chapter is immate-
rial. Also that if page 534 finds us only in the second chapter,
the length of the first one must have been really intolerable."
"Column!" I cried.
"Brilliant, Watson. You are scintillating this morning. If it is
not column, then I am very much deceived. So now, you see, we
begin to visualize a large book printed in double columns
which are each of a considerable iength, since one of the words
is numbered in the document as the two hundred and ninety-
third. Have we reached the limits of what reason can supply?"
"I fear that we have."
"Surely you do yourself an injustice. One more coruscation,
my dear Watson -- yet another brain-wave! Had the volume been
an unusual one, he would have sent it to me. Instead of that, he
had intended, before his plans were nipped, to send me the clue
in this envelope. He says so in his note. This would seem to
indicate that the book is one which he thought I would have no
difficulty in finding for myself. He had it -- and he imagined that
I would have it, too. In short, Watson, it is a very common
book."
"What you say certainly sounds plausible."
"So we have contracted our field of search to a large book,
printed in double columns and in common use."
"The Bible!" I cried triumphantly.
"Good, Watson, good! But not, if I may say so, quite good
enough! Even if I accepted the compliment for myself I could
hardly name any volume which would be less likely to iie at the
elbow of one of Moriarty's associates. Besides, the editions of
Holy Writ are so numerous that he could hardly suppose that two
copies would have the same pagination. This is clearly a book
which is standardized. He knows for certain that his page 534
will exactly agree with my page 534."
"But very few books would correspond with that."
"Exactly. Therein lies our salvation. Our search is narrowed
down to standardized books which anyone may be supposed to
possess."
"Bradshaw!"
"There are difficulties, Watson. The vocabulary of Bradshaw
is nervous and terse, but limited. The selection of words would
hardly lend itself to the sending of general messages. We will
eliminate Bradshaw. The dictionary is, I fear, inadmissible for
the same reason. What then is left?"
"An almanac!"
"Excellent, Watson! I am very much mistaken if you have not
touched the spot. An almanac! Let us consider the claims of
Whitaker's Almanac. It is in common use. It has the requisite
number of pages. It is in double column. Though reserved in its
earlier vocabulary, it becomes, if I remember right, quite garru-
lous towards the end." He picked the volume from his desk.
"Here is page 534, column two, a substantial block of print
dealing, I perceive, with the trade and resources of British India.
Jot down the words, Watson! Number thirteen is 'Mahratta.'
Not, I fear, a very auspicious beginning. Number one hundred
and twenty-seven is 'Government'; which at least makes sense,
though somewhat irrelevant to ourselves and Professor Moriarty.
Now let us try again. What does the Mahratta government do?
Alas! the next word is 'pig's-bristles.' We are undone, my good
Watson! It is finished!"
He had spoken in jesting vein, but the twitching of his bushy
eyebrows bespoke his disappointment and irritation. I sat help-
less and unhappy, staring into the fire. A long silence was
broken by a sudden exclamation from Holmes, who dashed at a
cupboard, from which he emerged with a second yellow-covered
volume in his hand.
"We pay the price, Watson, for being too up-to-date!" he
cried. "We are before our time, and suffer the usual penalties.
Being the seventh of January, we have very properly laid in the
new almanac. It is more than likely that Porlock took his mes-
sage from the old one. No doubt he would have told us so had
his letter of explanation been written. Now let us see what page
534 has in store for us. Number thirteen is 'There,' which is
much more promising. Number one hundred and twenty-seven is
'is' -- 'There is' " -- Holmes's eyes were gleaming with excite-
ment, and his thin, nervous fingers twitched as he counted the
words -- " 'danger.' Ha! Ha! Capital! Put that down, Watson.
'There is danger -- may -- come -- very -- soon -- one.' Then we have
the name 'Douglas' -- 'rich -- country -- now -- at -- Birlstone --
House -- Birlstone -- confidence -- is -- pressing.' There, Watson!
What do you think of pure reason and its fruit? If the green-
grocer had such a thing as a laurel wreath, I should send Billy
round for it."
I was staring at the strange message which I had scrawled, as
he deciphered it, upon a sheet of foolscap on my knee.
"What a queer, scrambling way of expressing his meaning!"
said I.
"On the contrary, he has done quite remarkably well," said
Holmes. "When you search a single column for words with
which to express your meaning, you can hardly expect to get
everything you want. You are bound to leave something to the
intelligence of your correspondent. The purport is perfectly clear.
Some deviltry is intended against one Douglas, whoever he may
be, residing as stated, a rich country gentleman. He is sure --
'confidence' was as near as he could get to 'confident' -- that it is
pressing. There is our result -- and a very workmanlike little bit
of analysis it was!"
Holmes had the impersonal joy of the true artist in his better
work, even as he mourned darkly when it fell below the high
level to which he aspired. He was still chuckling over his success
when Billy swung open the door and Inspector MacDonald of
Scotland Yard was ushered into the room.
Those were the early days at the end of the '80's, when Alec
MacDonald was far from having attained the national fame
which he has now achieved. He was a young but trusted member
of the detective force, who had distinguished himself in several
cases which had been intrusted to him. His tall, bony figure gave
promise of exceptional physical strength, while his great cranium
and deep-set, lustrous eyes spoke no less clearly of the keen
intelligence which twinkled out from behind his bushy eyebrows.
He was a silent, precise man with a dour nature and a hard
Aberdonian accent.
Twice already in his career had Holmes helped him to attain
success, his own sole reward being the intellectual joy of the
problem. For this reason the affection and respect of the Scotch-
man for his amateur colleague were profound, and he showed
them by the frankness with which he consulted Holmes in every
difficulty. Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent
instantly recognizes genius, and MacDonald had talent enough
for his profession to enable him to perceive that there was no
humiliation in seeking the assistance of one who already stood
alone in Europe, both in his gifts and in his experience. Holmes
was not prone to friendship, but he was tolerant of the big
Scotchman, and smiled at the sight of him.
"You are an early bird, Mr. Mac," said he. "I wish you luck
with your worm. I fear this means that there is some mischief
afoot."
"If you said 'hope' instead of 'fear,' it would be nearer the
truth, I'm thinking, Mr. Holmes," the inspector answered, with a
knowing grin. "Well, maybe a wee nip would keep out the
raw morning chill. No, I won't smoke, I thank you. I'll have
to be pushing on my way; for the early hours of a case are the
precious ones, as no man knows better than your own self. But --
but --"
The inspector had stopped suddenly, and was staring with a
look of absolute amazement at a paper upon the table. It was the
sheet upon which I had scrawled the enigmatic message.
"Douglas!" he stammered. "Birlstone! What's this, Mr.
Holmes? Man, it's witchcraft! Where in the name of all that is
wonderful did you get those names?"
"It is a cipher that Dr. Watson and I have had occasion to
solve. But why -- what's amiss with the names?"
The inspector looked from one to the other of us in dazed
astonishment. "Just this," said he, "that Mr. Douglas of Birlstone
Manor House was horribly murdered last night!"
Chapter 2
Sherlock Holmes Discourses
Chapter 3
The Tragedy of Birlstone
"Always!"
"Then the murderer, or whoever it was, first took off this ring
you call the nugget ring, then the wedding ring, and afterwards
put the nugget ring back again."
"That is so!"
The worthy country policeman shook his head. "Seems to me
the sooner we get London on to this case the better," said he.
"White Mason is a smart man. No local job has ever been too
much for White Mason. It won't be long now before he is here
to help us. But I expect we'll have to look to London before we
are through. Anyhow, I'm not ashamed to say that it is a deal too
thick for the likes of me."
Chapter 4
Darkness
Chapter 5
The People Of the Drama
"Have you seen all you want of the study?" asked White Mason
as we reentered the house.
"For the time," said the inspector, and Holmes nodded.
"Then perhaps you would now like to hear the evidence of
some of the people in the house. We could use the dining-room,
Ames. Please come yourself first and tell us what you know."
The butler's account was a simple and a clear one, and he
gave a convincing impression of sincerity. He had been engaged
five years before, when Douglas first came to Birlstone. He
understood that Mr. Douglas was a rich gentleman who had
made his money in America. He had been a kind and considerate
employer -- not quite what Ames was used to, perhaps; but one
can't have everything. He never saw any signs of apprehension
in Mr. Douglas: on the contrary, he was the most fearless man
he had ever known. He ordered the drawbridge to be pulled up
every night because it was the ancient custom of the old house,
and he liked to keep the old ways up.
Mr. Douglas seldom went to London or left the village; but on
the day before the crime he had been shopping at Tunbridge
Wells. He (Ames) had observed some restlessness and excite-
ment on the part of Mr. Douglas that day; for he had seemed
impatient and irritable, which was unusual with him. He had not
gone to bed that night; but was in the pantry at the back of the
house, putting away the silver, when he heard the bell ring
violently. He heard no shot; but it was hardly possible he would,
as the pantry and kitchens were at the very back of the house and
there were several closed doors and a long passage between. The
housekeeper had come out of her room, attracted by the violent
ringing of the bell. They had gone to the front of the house
together.
As they reached the bottom of the stair he had seen Mrs.
Douglas coming down it. No, she was not hurrying; it did not
seem to him that she was particularly agitated. Just as she
reached the bottom of the stair Mr. Barker had rushed out of the
study. He had stopped Mrs. Douglas and begged her to go back.
"For God's sake, go back to your room!" he cried. "Poor
Jack is dead! You can do nothing. For God's sake, go back!"
After some persuasion upon the stairs Mrs. Douglas had gone
back. She did not scream. She made no outcry whatever. Mrs.
Allen, the housekeeper, had taken her upstairs and stayed with
her in the bedroom. Ames and Mr. Barker had then returned to
the study, where they had found everything exactly as the police
had seen it. The candle was not lit at that time; but the lamp was
burning. They had looked out of the window; but the night was
very dark and nothing could be seen or heard. They had then
rushed out into the hall, where Ames had turned the windlass
which lowered the drawbridge. Mr. Barker had then hurried off
to get the police.
Such, in its essentials, was the evidence of the butler.
The account of Mrs. Allen, the housekeeper, was, so far as it
went, a corroboration of that of her fellow servant. The house-
keeper's room was rather nearer to the front of the house than the
pantry in which Ames had been working. She was preparing to
go to bed when the loud ringing of the bell had attracted her
attention. She was a little hard of hearing. Perhaps that was why
she had not heard the shot; but in any case the study was a long
way off. She remembered hearing some sound which she imag-
ined to be the slamming of a door. That was a good deal
earlier -- half an hour at least before the ringing of the bell. When
Mr. Ames ran to the front she went with him. She saw Mr.
Barker, very pale and excited, come out of the study. He inter-
cepted Mrs. Douglas, who was coming down the stairs. He
entreated her to go back, and she answered him, but what she
said could not be heard.
"Take her up! Stay with her!" he had said to Mrs. Allen.
She had therefore taken her to the bedroom, and endeavoured
to soothe her. She was greatly excited, trembling all over, but
made no other attempt to go downstairs. She just sat in her
dressing gown by her bedroom fire, with her head sunk in her
hands. Mrs. Allen stayed with her most of the night. As to the
other servants, they had all gone to bed, and the alarm did not
reach them until just before the police arrived. They slept at the
extreme back of the house, and could not possibly have heard
anything.
So far the housekeeper could add nothing on cross-examination
save lamentations and expressions of amazement.
Cecil Barker succeeded Mrs. Allen as a witness. As to the
occurrences of the night before, he had very little to add to what
he had already told the police. Personally, he was convinced that
the murderer had escaped by the window. The bloodstain was
conclusive, in his opinion, on that point. Besides, as the bridge
was up, there was no other possible way of escaping. He could
not explain what had become of the assassin or why he had not
taken his bicycle, if it were indeed his. He could not possibly
have been drowned in the moat, which was at no place more
than three feet deep.
In his own mind he had a very definite theory about the
murder. Douglas was a reticent man, and there were some
chapters in his life of which he never spoke. He had emigrated to
America when he was a very young man. He had prospered
well, and Barker had first met him in California, where they had
become partners in a successful mining claim at a place called
Benito Canon. They had done very well; but Douglas had
suddenly sold out and started for England. He was a widower at
that time. Barker had afterwards realized his money and come to
live in London. Thus they had renewed their friendship.
Douglas had given him the impression that some danger was
hanging over his head, and he had always looked upon his
sudden departure from California, and also his renting a house in
so quiet a place in England, as being connected with this peril.
He imagined that some secret society, some implacable organiza-
tion, was on Douglas's track, which would never rest until it
killed him. Some remarks of his had given him this idea; though
he had never told him what the society was, nor how he had
come to offend it. He could only suppose that the legend upon
the placard had some reference to this secret society.
"How long were you with Douglas in California?" asked
Inspector MacDonald.
"Five years altogether."
"He was a bachelor, you say?"
"A widower."
"Have you ever heard where his first wife came from?"
"No, I remember his saying that she was of German extrac-
tion, and I have seen her portrait. She was a very beautiful
woman. She died of typhoid the year before I met him."
"You don't associate his past with any particular part of
America?"
"I have heard him talk of Chicago. He knew that city well and
had worked there. I have heard him talk of the coal and iron
districts. He had travelled a good deal in his time."
"Was he a politician? Had this secret society to do with
politics?"
"No, he cared nothing about politics."
"You have no reason to think it was criminal?"
"On the contrary, I never met a straighter man in my life."
"Was there anything curious about his life in California?"
"He liked best to stay and to work at our claim in the
mountains. He would never go where other men were if he could
help it. That's why I first thought that someone was after him.
Then when he left so suddenly for Europe I made sure that it was
so. I believe that he had a warning of some sort. Within a week
of his leaving half a dozen men were inquiring for him."
"What sort of men?"
"Well, they were a mighty hard-looking crowd. They came
up to the claim and wanted to know where he was. I told them
that he was gone to Europe and that I did not know where to find
him. They meant him no good -- it was easy to see that."
"Were these men Americans -- Californians?"
"Well, I don't know about Californians. They were Ameri-
cans, all right. But they were not miners. I don't know what they
were, and was very glad to see their backs."
"That was six years ago?"
"Nearer seven."
"And then you were together five years in California, so that
this business dates back not less than eleven years at the least?"
"That is so."
"It must be a very serious feud that would be kept up with
such earnestness for as long as that. It would be no light thing
that would give rise to it."
"I think it shadowed his whole life. It was never quite out of
his mind."
"But if a man had a danger hanging over him, and knew what
it was, don't you think he would turn to the police for protection?"
"Maybe it was some danger that he could not be protected
against. There's one thing you should know. He always went
about armed. His revolver was never out of his pocket. But, by
bad luck, he was in his dressing gown and had left it in the
bedroom last night. Once the bridge was up, I guess he thought
he was safe."
"I should like these dates a little clearer," said MacDonald.
"It is quite six years since Douglas left California. You followed
him next year, did you not?"
"That is so."
"And he had been married five years. You must have returned
about the time of his marriage."
"About a month before. I was his best man."
"Did you know Mrs. Douglas before her marriage?"
"No, I did not. I had been away from England for ten years."
"But you have seen a good deal of her since."
Barker looked sternly at the detective. "I have seen a good
deal of him since," he answered. "If I have seen her, it is
because you cannot visit a man without knowing his wife. If you
imagine there is any connection --"
"I imagine nothing, Mr. Barker. I am bound to make every
inquiry which can bear upon the case. But I mean no offense."
"Some inquiries are offensive," Barker answered angrily.
"It's only the facts that we want. It is in your interest and
everyone's interest that they should be cleared up. Did Mr.
Douglas entirely approve your friendship with his wife?"
Barker grew paler, and his great, strong hands were clasped
convulsively together. "You have no right to ask such ques-
tions!" he cried. "What has this to do with the matter you are
investigating?"
"I must repeat the question."
"Well, I refuse to answer."
"You can refuse to answer; but you must be aware that your
refusal is in itself an answer, for you would not refuse if you had
not something to conceal."
Barker stood for a moment with his face set grimly and his
strong black eyebrows drawn low in intense thought. Then he
looked up with a smile. "Well, I guess you gentlemen are only
doing your clear duty after all, and I have no right to stand in the
way of it. I'd only ask you not to worry Mrs. Douglas over this
matter; for she has enough upon her just now. I may tell you that
poor Douglas had just one fault in the world, and that was his
jealousy. He was fond of me -- no man could be fonder of a
friend. And he was devoted to his wife. He loved me to come
here, and was forever sending for me. And yet if his wife and I
talked together or there seemed any sympathy between us, a kind
of wave of jealousy would pass over him, and he would be off
the handle and saying the wildest things in a moment. More than
once I've sworn off coming for that reason, and then he would
write me such penitent, imploring letters that I just had to. But
you can take it from me, gentlemen, if it was my last word, that
no man ever had a more loving, faithful wife -- and I can say also
no friend could be more loyal than I!"
It was spoken with fervour and feeling, and yet Inspector
MacDonald could not dismiss the subject.
"You are aware," said he, "that the dead man's wedding ring
has been taken from his finger?"
"So it appears," said Barker.
"What do you mean by 'appears'? You know it as a fact."
The man seemed confused and undecided . "When I said
'appears' I meant that it was conceivable that he had himself
taken off the ring."
"The mere fact that the ring should be absent, whoever may
have removed it, would suggest to anyone's mind, would it not,
that the marriage and the tragedy were connected?"
Barker shrugged his broad shoulders. "I can't profess to say
what it means." he answered. "But if you mean to hint that it
could reflect in any way upon this lady's honour" -- his eyes
blazed for an instant, and then with an evident effort he got a
grip upon his own emotions "well, you are on the wrong track.
that's all."
"I don't know that I've anything else to ask you at present,"
said MacDonald, coldly.
"There was one small point," remarked Sherlock Holmes.
"When you entered the room there was only a candle lighted on
the table, was there not?"
"Yes, that was so."
"By its light you saw that some terrible incident had occurred?"
"Exactly."
"You at once rang for help?"
"Yes."
"And it arrived very speedily?"
"Within a minute or so."
"And yet when they arrived they found that the candle was
out and that the lamp had been lighted. That seems very
remarkable."
Again Barker showed some signs of indecision. "I don't see
that it was remarkable, Mr. Holmes," he answered after a pause.
"The candle threw a very bad light. My first thought was to get
a better one. The lamp was on the table; so I lit it."
"And blew out the candle?"
"Exactly."
Holmes asked no further question, and Barker, with a deliber-
ate look from one to the other of us, which had, as it seemed to
me, something of defiance in it, turned and left the room.
Inspector MacDonald had sent up a note to the effect that he
would wait upon Mrs. Douglas in her room; but she had replied
that she would meet us in the dining room. She entered now, a
tall and beautiful woman of thirty, reserved and self-possessed to
a remarkable degree, very different from the tragic and distracted
figure I had pictured. It is true that her face was pale and drawn,
like that of one who has endured a great shock; but her manner
was composed, and the finely moulded hand which she rested
upon the edge of the table was as steady as my own. Her sad,
appealing eyes travelled from one to the other of us with a
curiously inquisitive expression. That questioning gaze trans-
formed itself suddenly into abrupt speech.
"Have you found anything out yet?" she asked.
Was it my imagination that there was an undertone of fear
rather than of hope in the question?
"We have taken every possible step, Mrs. Douglas," said the
inspector. "You may rest assured that nothing will be neglected."
"Spare no money," she said in a dead, even tone. "It is my
desire that every possible effort should be made."
"Perhaps you can tell us something which may throw some
light upon the matter."
"I fear not; but all I know is at your service."
"We have heard from Mr. Cecil Barker that you did not
actually see -- that you were never in the room where the tragedy
occurred?"
"No, he turned me back upon the stairs. He begged me to
return to my room."
"Quite so. You had heard the shot, and you had at once come
down."
"I put on my dressing gown and then came down."
"How long was it after hearing the shot that you were stopped
on the stair by Mr. Barker?"
"It may have been a couple of minutes. It is so hard to reckon
time at such a moment. He implored me not to go on. He
assured me that I could do nothing. Then Mrs. Allen, the
housekeeper, led me upstairs again. It was all like some dreadful
dream."
"Can you give us any idea how long your husband had been
downstairs before you heard the shot?"
"No, I cannot say. He went from his dressing room, and I did
not hear him go. He did the round of the house every night, for
he was nervous of fire. It is the only thing that I have ever
known him nervous of."
"That is just the point which I want to come to, Mrs. Doug-
las. You have known your husband only in England, have you
not?"
"Yes, we have been married five years."
"Have you heard him speak of anything which occurred in
America and might bring some danger upon him?"
Mrs. Douglas thought earnestly before she answered. "Yes."
she said at last, "I have always felt that there was a danger
hanging over him. He refused to discuss it with me. It was not
from want of confidence in me -- there was the most complete
love and confidence betwecn us -- but it was out of his desire to
keep all alarm away from me. He thought I should brood over it
if I knew all, and so he was silent."
"How did you know it, then?"
Mrs. Douglas's face lit with a quick smile. "Can a husband
ever carry about a secret all his life and a woman who loves him
have no suspicion of it? I knew it by his refusal to talk about
some episodes in his American life. I knew it by certain precau-
tions he took. I knew it by certain words he let fall. I knew it by
the way he looked at unexpected strangers. I was perfectly
certain that he had some powerful enemies, that he believed they
were on his track, and that he was always on his guard against
them. I was so sure of it that for years I have been terrified if
ever he came home later than was expected."
"Might I ask," asked Holmes, "what the words were which
attracted your attention?"
"The Valley of Fear," the lady answered. "That was an
expression he has used when I questioned him. 'I have been in
the Valley of Fear. I am not out of it yet.' -- 'Are we never to get
out of the Valley of Fear?' I have asked him when I have seen
him more serious than usual. 'Sometimes I think that we never
shall,' he has answered."
"Surely you asked him what he meant by the Valley of
Fear?"
"I did; but his face would become very grave and he would
shake his head. 'It is bad enough that one of us should have been
in its shadow,' he said. 'Please God it shall never fall upon you!'
It was some real valley in which he had lived and in which
something terrible had occurred to him, of that I am certain; but I
can tell you no more."
"And he never mentioned any names?"
"Yes, he was delirious with fever once when he had his
hunting accident three years ago. Then I remember that there
was a name that came continually to his lips. He spoke it with
anger and a sort of horror. McGinty was the name -- Bodymaster
McGinty. I asked him when he recovered who Bodymaster
McGinty was, and whose body he was master of. 'Never of
mine, thank God!' he answered with a laugh, and that was all I
could get from him. But there is a connection between Bodymaster
McGinty and the Valley of Fear."
"There is one other point," said Inspector MacDonald. "You
met Mr. Douglas in a boarding house in London, did you not,
and became engaged to him there? Was there any romance,
anything secret or mysterious, about the wedding?"
"There was romance. There is always romance. There was
nothing mysterious."
"He had no rival?"
"No, I was quite free."
"You have heard, no doubt, that his wedding ring has been
taken. Does that suggest anything to you? Suppose that some
enemy of his old life had tracked him down and committed this
crime, what possible reason could he have for taking his wed-
ding ring?"
For an instant I could have sworn that the faintest shadow of a
smile flickered over the woman's lips.
"I really cannot tell," she answered. "It is certainly a most
extraordinary thing."
"Well, we will not detain you any longer, and we are sorry to
have put you to this trouble at such a time," said the inspector.
"There are some other points, no doubt; but we can refer to you
as they arise."
She rose, and I was again conscious of that quick, questioning
glance with which she had just surveyed us. "What impression
has my evidence made upon you?" The question might as well
have been spoken. Then, with a bow, she swept from the room.
"She's a beautiful woman -- a very beautiful woman," said
MacDonald thoughtfully, after the door had closed behind her.
"This man Barker has certainly been down here a good deal. He
is a man who might be attractive to a woman. He admits that the
dead man was jealous, and maybe he knew best himself what
cause he had for jealousy. Then there's that wedding ring. You
can't get past that. The man who tears a wedding ring off a dead
man's -- What do you say to it, Mr. Holmes?"
My friend had sat with his head upon his hands, sunk in the
deepest thought. Now he rose and rang the bell. "Ames," he
said, when the butler entered, "where is Mr. Cecil Barker
now?"
"I'll see, sir."
He came back in a moment to say that Barker was in the
garden.
"Can you remember, Ames, what Mr. Barker had on his feet
last night when you joined him in the study?"
"Yes, Mr. Holmes. He had a pair of bedroom slippers. I
brought him his boots when he went for the police."
"Where are the slippers now?"
"They are still under the chair in the hall."
"Very good, Ames. It is, of course, important for us to know
which tracks may be Mr. Barker's and which from outside."
"Yes, sir. I may say that I noticed that the slippers were
stained with blood -- so indeed were my own."
"That is natural enough, considering the condition of the
room. Very good, Ames. We will ring if we want you."
A few minutes later we were in the study. Holmes had brought
with him the carpet slippers from the hall. As Ames had ob-
served, the soles of both were dark with blood.
"Strange!" murmured Holmes, as he stood in the light of the
window and examined them minutely. "Very strange indeed!"
Stooping with one of his quick feline pounces, he placed the
slipper upon the blood mark on the sill. It exactly corresponded.
He smiled in silence at his colleagues.
The inspector was transfigured with excitement. His native
accent rattled like a stick upon railings.
"Man," he cried, "there's not a doubt of it! Barker has just
marked the window himself. It's a good deal broader than any
bootmark. I mind that you said it was a splay-foot, and here's
the explanation. But what's the game, Mr. Holmes -- what's the
game?"
"Ay, what's the game?" my friend repeated thoughtfully.
White Mason chuckled aind rubbed his fat hands together in
his professional satisfaction. "I said it was a snorter!" he cried.
"And a real snorter it is!"
Chapter 6
A Dawning Light
Chapter 7
The Solution
"Dear Sir:
"It has struck me that it is our duty to drain the moat, in
the hope that we may find some --"
"Impossible!"
Now sign that, and send it by hand about four o'clock. At that
hour we shall meet again in this room. Until then we may each
do what we like; for I can assure you that this inquiry has come
to a definite pause."
Evening was drawing in when we reassembled. Holmes was
very serious in his manner, myself curious, and the detectives
obviously critical and annoyed.
"Well, gentlemen," said my friend gravely, "I am asking
you now to put everything to the test with me, and you will
judge for yourselves whether the observations I have made jus-
tify the conclusions to which I have come. It is a chill evening,
and I do not know how long our expedition may last; so I beg
that you will wear your warmest coats. It is of the first impor-
tance that we should be in our places before it grows dark; so
with your permission we shall get started at once."
We passed along the outer bounds of the Manor House park
until we came to a place where there was a gap in the rails which
fenced it. Through this we slipped, and then in the gathering
gloom we followed Holmes until we had reached a shrubbery
which lies nearly opposite to the main door and the drawbridge.
The latter had not been raised. Holmes crouched down behind
the screen of laurels, and we all three followed his example.
"Well, what are we to do now?" asked MacDonald with
some gruffness.
"Possess our souls in patience and make as little noise as
possible," Holmes answered.
"What are we here for at all? I really think that you might
treat us with more frankness."
Holmes laughed. "Watson insists that I am the dramatist in
real life," said he. "Some touch of the artist wells up within me,
and calls insistently for a well-staged performance. Surely our
profession, Mr. Mac, would be a drab and sordid one if we did
not sometimes set the scene so as to glorify our results. The
blunt accusation, the brutal tap upon the shoulder -- what can one
make of such a denouement? But the quick inference, the subtle
trap, the clever forecast of coming events, the triumphant vindi-
cation of bold theories -- are these not the pride and the justifica-
tion of our life's work? At the present moment you thrill with the
glamour of the situation and the anticipation of the hunt. Where
would be that thrill if I had been as definite as a timetable? I only
ask a little patience, Mr. Mac, and all will be clear to you."
"Well, I hope the pride and justification and the rest of it will
come before we all get our death of cold," said the London
detective with comic resignation.
We all had good reason to join in the aspiration; for our vigil
was a long and bitter one. Slowly the shadows darkened over the
long, sombre face of the old house. A cold, damp reek from the
moat chilled us to the bones and set our teeth chattering. There
was a single lamp over the gateway and a steady globe of light in
the fatal study. Everything else was dark and still.
"How long is this to last?" asked the inspector finally. "And
what is it we are watching for?"
"I have no more notion than you how long it is to last,"
Holmes answered with some asperity. "If criminals would always
schedule their movements like railway trains, it would certainly
be more convenient for all of us. As to what it is we -- Well,
that's what we are watching for!"
As he spoke the bright, yellow light in the study was obscured
by somebody passing to and fro before it. The laurels among
which we lay were immediately opposite the window and not
more than a hundred feet from it. Presently it was thrown open
with a whining of hinges, and we could dimly see the dark
outline of a man's head and shoulders looking out into the
gloom. For some minutes he peered forth in furtive, stealthy
fashion, as one who wishes to be assured that he is unobserved.
Then he leaned forward, and in the intense silence we were
aware of the soft lapping of agitated water. He seemed to be
stirring up the moat with something which he held in his hand.
Then suddenly he hauled something in as a fisherman lands a
fish -- some large, round object which obscured the light as it
was dragged through the open casement.
"Now!" cried Holmes. "Now!"
We were all upon our feet, staggering after him with our
stiffened limbs, while he ran swiftly across the bridge and rang
violently at the bell. There was the rasping of bolts from the
other side, and the amazed Ames stood in the entrance. Holmes
brushed him aside without a word and, followed by all of us,
rushed into the room which had been occupied by the man whom
we had been watching.
The oil lamp on the table represented the glow which we had
seen from outside. It was now in the hand of Cecil Barker, who
held it towards us as we entered. Its light shone upon his strong,
resolute, clean-shaved face and his menacing eyes.
"What the devil is the meaning of all this?" he cried. "What
are you after, anyhow?"
Holmes took a swift glance round, and then pounced upon a
sodden bundle tied together with cord which lay where it had
been thrust under the writing table.
"This is what we are after, Mr. Barker -- this bundle, weighted
with a dumb-bell, which you have just raised from the bottom of
the moat."
Barker stared at Holmes with amazement in his face. "How in
thunder came you to know anything about it?" he asked.
"Simply that I put it there."
"You put it there! You!"
"Perhaps I should have said 'replaced it there,' " said Holmes.
"You will remember, Inspector MacDonald, that I was some-
what struck by the absence of a dumb-bell. I drew your attention
to it; but with the pressure of other events you had hardly the
time to give it the consideration which would have enabled you
to draw deductions from it. When water is near and a weight is
missing it is not a very far-fetched supposition that something
has been sunk in the water. The idea was at least worth testing;
so with the help of Ames, who admitted me to the room, and the
crook of Dr. Watson's umbrella, I was able last night to fish up
and inspect this bundle.
"It was of the first importance, however, that we should be
able to prove who placed it there. This we accomplished by the
very obvious device of announcing that the moat would be dried
to-morrow, which had, of course, the effect that whoever had
hidden the bundle would most certainly withdraw it the moment
that darkness enabled him to do so. We have no less than four
witnesses as to who it was who took advantage of the opportu-
nity, and so, Mr. Barker, I think the word lies now with you."
Sherlock Holmes put the sopping bundle upon the table beside
the lamp and undid the cord which bound it. From within he
extracted a dumb-bell, which he tossed down to its fellow in the
corner. Next he drew forth a pair of boots. "American, as you
perceive," he remarked, pointing to the toes. Then he laid upon
the table a long, deadly, sheathed knife. Finally he unravelled a
bundle of clothing, comprising a complete set of underclothes,
socks, a gray tweed suit, and a short yellow overcoat.
"The clothes are commonplace," remarked Holmes, "save
only the overcoat, which is full of suggestive touches." He held
it tenderly towards the light. "Here, as you perceive, is the inner
pocket prolonged into the lining in such fashion as to give ample
space for the truncated fowling piece. The tailor's tab is on the
neck -- 'Neal, Outfitter, Vermissa, U. S. A.' I have spent an
instructive afternoon in the rector's library, and have enlarged
my knowledge by adding the fact that Vermissa is a flourishing
little town at the head of one of the best known coal and iron
valleys in the United States. I have some recollection, Mr.
Barker, that you associated the coal districts with Mr. Douglas's
first wife, and it would surely not be too far-fetched an inference
that the V. V. upon the card by the dead body might stand for
Vermissa Valley, or that this very valley which sends forth
emissaries of murder may be that Valley of Fear of which we
have heard. So much is fairly clear. And now, Mr. Barker, I
seem to be standing rather in the way of your explanation."
It was a sight to see Cecil Barker's expressive face during this
exposition of the great detective. Anger, amazement, consterna-
tion, and indecision swept over it in turn. Finally he took refuge
in a somewhat acrid irony.
"You know such a lot, Mr. Holmes, perhaps you had better
tell us some more," he sneered.
"I have no doubt that I could tell you a great deal more, Mr.
Barker; but it would come with a better grace from you."
"Oh, you think so, do you? Well, all I can say is that if
there's any secret here it is not my secret, and I am not the man
to give it away."
"Well, if you take that line, Mr. Barker," said the inspector
quietly, "we must just keep you in sight until we have the
warrant and can hold you."
"You can do what you damn please about that," said Barker
defiantly.
The proceedings seemed to have come to a definite end so far
as he was concerned; for one had only to look at that granite face
to realize that no peine forte et dure would ever force him to
plead against his will. The deadlock was broken, however, by a
woman's voice. Mrs. Douglas had been standing listening at the
half opened door, and now she entered the room.
"You have done enough for now, Cecil," said she. "What-
ever comes of it in the future, you have done enough."
"Enough and more than enough," remarked Sherlock Holmes
gravely. "I have every sympathy with you, madam, and
should strongly urge you to have some confidence in the common
sense of our jurisdiction and to take the police voluntarily into
your complete confidence. It may be that I am myself at fault for
not following up the hint which you conveyed to me through my
friend, Dr. Watson; but, at that time I had every reason to
believe that you were directly concerned in the crime. Now I am
assured that this is not so. At the same time, there is much that is
unexplained, and I should strongly recommend that you ask Mr.
Douglas to tell us his own story."
Mrs. Douglas gave a cry of astonishment at Holmes's words.
The detectives and I must have echoed it, when we were aware
of a man who seemed to have emerged from the wall, who
advanced now from the gloom of the corner in which he had
appeared. Mrs. Douglas turned, and in an instant her arms were
round him. Barker had seized his outstretched hand.
"It's best this way, Jack," his wife repeated; "I am sure that
it is best."
"Indeed, yes, Mr. Douglas," said Sherlock Holmes, "I am
sure that you will find it best."
The man stood blinking at us with the dazed look of one who
comes from the dark into the light. It was a remarkable face,
bold gray eyes, a strong, short-clipped, grizzled moustache, a
square, projecting chin, and a humorous mouth. He took a good
look at us all, and then to my amazement he advanced to me and
handed me a bundle of paper.
"I've heard of you," said he in a voice which was not quite
English and not quite American, but was altogether mellow and
pleasing. "You are the historian of this bunch. Well, Dr. Wat-
son, you've never had such a story as that pass through your
hands before, and I'll lay my last dollar on that. Tell it your own
way; but there are the facts, and you can't miss the public so
long as you have those. I've been cooped up two days, and I've
spent the daylight hours -- as much daylight as I could get in that
rat trap -- in putting the thing into words. You're welcome to
them -- you and your public. There's the story of the Valley of
Fear."
"That's the past, Mr. Douglas," said Sherlock Holmes qui-
etly. "What we desire now is to hear your story of the present."
"You'll have it, sir," said Douglas. "May I smoke as I talk?
Well, thank you, Mr. Holmes. You're a smoker yourself, if I
remember right, and you'll guess what it is to be sitting for two
days with tobacco in your pocket and afraid that the smell will
give you away." He leaned against the mantelpiece and sucked
at the cigar which Holmes had handed him. "I've heard of you
Mr. Holmes. I never guessed that I should meet you. But before
you are through with that," he nodded at my papers, "you will
say I've brought you something fresh."
Inspector MacDonald had been staring at the newcomer with
the greatest amazement. "Well, this fairly beats me!" he cried at
last. "If you are Mr. John Douglas of Birlstone Manor, then
whose death have we been investigating for these two days, and
where in the world have you sprung from now? You seemed to
me to come out of the floor like a jack-in-a-box."
"Ah, Mr. Mac," said Holmes, shaking a reproving forefin-
ger, "you would not read that excellent local compilation which
described the concealment of King Charles. People did not hide
in those days without excellent hiding places, and the hiding
place that has once been used may be again. I had persuaded
myself that we should find Mr. Douglas under this roof."
"And how long have you been playing this trick upon us, Mr.
Holmes?" said the inspector angrily. "How long have you
allowed us to waste ourselves upon a search that you knew to be
an absurd one?"
"Not one instant, my dear Mr. Mac. Only last night did I
form my views of the case. As they could not be put to the proof
until this evening, I invited you and your colleague to take a
holiday for the day. Pray what more could I do? When I found
the suit of clothes in the moat, it at once became apparent to me
that the body we had found could not have been the body of Mr.
John Douglas at all, but must be that of the bicyclist from
Tunbridge Wells. No other conclusion was possible. Therefore I
had to determine where Mr. John Douglas himself could be, and
the balance of probability was that with the connivance of his
wife and his friend he was concealed in a house which had such
conveniences for a fugitive, and awaiting quieter times when he
could make his final escape."
"Well, you figured it out about right," said Douglas approv-
ingly. "I thought I'd dodge your British law; for I was not sure
how I stood under it, and also I saw my chance to throw these
hounds once for all off my track. Mind you, from first to last I
have done nothing to be ashamed of, and nothing that I would
not do again; but you'll judge that for yourselves when I tell you
my story. Never mind warning me, Inspector: I'm ready to stand
pat upon the truth.
"I'm not going to begin at the beginning. That's all there," he
indicated my bundle of papers, "and a mighty queer yarn you'll
find it. It all comes down to this: That there are some men that
have good cause to hate me and would give their last dollar to
know that they had got me. So long as I am alive and they are
alive, there is no safety in this world for me. They hunted me
from Chicago to California, then they chased me out of America;
but when I married and settled down in this quiet spot I thought
my last years were going to be peaceable.
"I never explained to my wife how things were. Why should I
pull her into it? She would never have a quiet moment again; but
would always be imagining trouble. I fancy she knew something,
for I may have dropped a word here or a word there; but until
yesterday, after you gentlemen had seen her, she never knew the
rights of the matter. She told you all she knew, and so did
Barker here; for on the night when this thing happened there was
mighty little time for explanations. She knows everything now,
and I would have been a wiser man if I had told her sooner. But
it was a hard question, dear," he took her hand for an instant in
his own, "and I acted for the best.
"Well, gentlemen, the day before these happenings I was over
in Tunbridge Wells, and I got a glimpse of a man in the street. It
was only a glimpse; but I have a quick eye for these things, and I
never doubted who it was. It was the worst enemy I had among
them all -- one who has been after me like a hungry wolf after a
caribou all these years. I knew there was trouble coming, and I
came home and made ready for it. I guessed I'd fight through it
all right on my own, my luck was a proverb in the States about
'76. I never doubted that it would be with me still.
"I was on my guard all that next day, and never went out into
the park. It's as well, or he'd have had the drop on me with that
buckshot gun of his before ever I could draw on him. After the
bridge was up -- my mind was always more restful when that
bridge was up in the evenings -- I put the thing clear out of my
head. I never dreamed of his getting into the house and waiting
for me. But when I made my round in my dressing gown, as was
my habit, I had no sooner entered the study than I scented
danger. I guess when a man has had dangers in his life -- and I've
had more than most in my time -- there is a kind of sixth sense
that waves the red flag. I saw the signal clear enough, and yet I
couldn't tell you why. Next instant I spotted a boot under the
window curtain, and then I saw why plain enough.
"I'd just the one candle that was in my hand; but there was a
good light from the hall lamp through the open door. I put down
the candle and jumped for a hammer that I'd left on the mantel.
At the same moment he sprang at me. I saw the glint of a knife,
and I lashed at him with the hammer. I got him somewhere; for
the knife tinkled down on the floor. He dodged round the table
as quick as an eel, and a moment later he'd got his gun from
under his coat. I heard him cock it; but I had got hold of it before
he could fire. I had it by the barrel, and we wrestled for it all
ends up for a minute or more. It was death to the man that lost
his grip.
"He never lost his grip; but he got it butt downward for a
moment too long. Maybe it was I that pulled the trigger. Maybe
we just jolted it off between us. Anyhow, he got both barrels in
the face, and there I was, staring down at all that was left of Ted
Baldwin. I'd recognized him in the township, and again when he
sprang for me; but his own mother wouldn't recognize him as I
saw him then. I'm used to rough work; but I fairly turned sick at
the sight of him.
"I was hanging on the side of the table when Barker came
hurrying down. I heard my wife coming, and I ran to the door
and stopped her. It was no sight for a woman. I promised I'd
come to her soon. I said a word or two to Barker -- he took it all
in at a glance -- and we waited for the rest to come along. But
there was no sign of them. Then we understood that they could
hear nothing, and that all that had happened was known only to
ourselves.
"It was at that instant that the idea came to me. I was fairly
dazzled by the brilliance of it. The man's sleeve had slipped up
and there was the branded mark of the lodge upon his forearm.
See here!"
The man whom we had known as Douglas turned up his own
coat and cuff to show a brown triangle within a circle exactly
like that which we had seen upon the dead man.
"It was the sight of that which started me on it. I seemed to
see it all clear at a glance. There were his height and hair and
figure, about the same as my own. No one could swear to his
face, poor devil! I brought down this suit of clothes, and in a
quarter of an hour Barker and I had put my dressing gown on
him and he lay as you found him. We tied all his things into a
bundle, and I weighted them with the only weight I could find
and put them through the window. The card he had meant to lay
upon my body was lying beside his own.
"My rings were put on his finger; but when it came to the
wedding ring," he held out his muscular hand, "you can see for
yourselves that I had struck the limit. I have not moved it since
the day I was married, and it would have taken a file to get it
off. I don't know, anyhow, that I should have cared to part with
it; but if I had wanted to I couldn't. So we just had to leave that
detail to take care of itself. On the other hand, I brought a bit of
plaster down and put it where I am wearing one myself at this
instant. You slipped up there, Mr. Holmes, clever as you are; for
if you had chanced to take off that plaster you would have found
no cut underneath it.
"Well, that was the situation. If I could lie low for a while
and then get away where I could be joined by my 'widow' we
should have a chance at last of living in peace for the rest of our
lives. These devils would give me no rest so long as I was above
ground; but if they saw in the papers that Baldwin had got his
man, there would be an end of all my troubles. I hadn't much
time to make it all clear to Barker and to my wife; but they
understood enough to be able to help me. I knew all about this
hiding place, so did Ames; but it never entered his head to
connect it with the matter. I retired into it, and it was up to
Barker to do the rest.
"I guess you can fill in for yourselves what he did. He opened
the window and made the mark on the sill to give an idea of how
the murderer escaped. It was a tall order, that; but as the bridge
was up there was no other way. Then, when everything was
fixed, he rang the bell for all he was worth. What happened
afterward you know. And so, gentlemen, you can do what you
please; but I've told you the truth and the whole truth, so help
me God! What I ask you now is how do I stand by the English
law?"
There was a silence which was broken by Sherlock Holmes.
"The English law is in the main a just law. You will get no
worse than your deserts from that, Mr. Douglas. But I would ask
you how did this man know that you lived here, or how to get
into your house, or where to hide to get you?"
"I know nothing of this."
Holmes's face was very white and grave. "The story is not
over yet, I fear," said he. "You may find worse dangers than
the English law, or even than your enemies from America. I see
trouble before you, Mr. Douglas. You'll take my advice and still
be on your guard."
And now, my long-suffering readers, I will ask you to come
away with me for a time, far from the Sussex Manor House of
Birlstone, and far also from the year of grace in which we made
our eventful journey which ended with the strange story of the
man who had been known as John Douglas. I wish you to
journey back some twenty years in time, and westward some
thousands of miles in space, that I may lay before you a singular
and terrible narrative -- so singular and so terrible that you may
find it hard to believe that even as I tell it, even so did it occur.
Do not think that I intrude one story before another is finished.
As you read on you will find that this is not so. And when I have
detailed those distant events and you have solved this mystery of
the past, we shall meet once more in those rooms on Baker
Street, where this, like so many other wonderful happenings,
will find its end.
PART 2
The Scowrers
Chapter 1
The Man
Chapter 2
The Bodymaster
Chapter 3
Lodge 341, Vermissa
"DEAR SIR:
"There is a job to be done on Andrew Rae of Rae &
Sturmash, coal owners near this place. You will remember
that your lodge owes us a return, having had the service of
two brethren in the matter of the patrolman last fall. You
will send two good men, they will be taken charge of by
Treasurer Higgins of this lodge, whose address you know.
He will show them when to act and where. Yours in freedom,
"J. W. WINDLE D. M. A. 0. F.
Sure, I've read enough of the slush!" cried the chairman, tossing
the paper down upon the table. "That's what he says of us. The
question I'm asking you is what shall we say to him?"
"Kill him!" cried a dozen fierce voices.
"I protest against that," said Brother Morris, the man of the
good brow and shaved face. "I tell you, Brethren, that our hand
is too heavy in this valley, and that there will come a point
where in self-defense every man will unite to crush us out. James
Stanger is an old man. He is respected in the township and the
district. His paper stands for all that is solid in the valley. If that
man is struck down, there will be a stir through this state that
will only end with our destruction."
"And how would they bring about our destruction, Mr.
Standback?" cried McGinty. "Is it by the police? Sure, half of
them are in our pay and half of them afraid of us. Or is it by the
law courts and the judge? Haven't we tried that before now, and
what ever came of it?"
"There is a Judge Lynch that might try the case," said
Brother Morris.
A general shout of anger greeted the suggestion.
"I have but to raise my finger," cried McGinty, "and I could
put two hundred men into this town that would clear it out from
end to end." Then suddenly raising his voice and bending his
huge black brows into a terrible frown, "See here, Brother
Morris, I have my eye on you, and have had for some time!
You've no heart yourself, and you try to take the heart out of
others. It will be an ill day for you, Brother Morris, when your
own name comes on our agenda paper, and I'm thinking that it's
just there that I ought to place it."
Morris had turned deadly pale, and his knees seemed to give
way under him as he fell back into his chair. He raised his glass
in his trembling hand and drank before he could answer. "I
apologize, Eminent Bodymaster, to you and to every brother in
this lodge if I have said more than I should. I am a faithful
member -- you all know that -- and it is my fear lest evil come to
the lodge which makes me speak in anxious words. But I have
greater trust in your judgment than in my own, Eminent
Bodymaster, and I promise you that I will not offend again."
The Bodymaster's scowl relaxed as he listened to the humble
words. "Very good, Brother Morris. It's myself that would be
sorry if it were needful to give you a lesson. But so long as I am
in this chair we shall be a united lodge in word and in deed. And
now, boys," he continued, looking round at the company, "I'll
say this much, that if Stanger got his full deserts there would be
more trouble than we need ask for. These editors hang together,
and every journal in the state would be crying out for police and
troops. But I guess you can give him a pretty severe warning.
Will you fix it, Brother Baldwin?"
"Sure!" said the young man eagerly.
"How many will you take?"
"Half a dozen, and two to guard the door. You'll come,
Gower, and you, Mansel. and you, Scanlan, and the two
Willabys."
"I promised the new brother he should go," said the chairman.
Ted Baldwin looked at McMurdo with eyes which showed that
he had not forgotten nor forgiven. "Well, he can come if he
wants," he said in a surly voice. "That's enough. The sooner
we get to work the better."
The company broke up with shouts and yells and snatches of
drunken song. The bar was still crowded with revellers, and
many of the brethren remained there. The little band who had
been told off for duty passed out into the street, proceeding in
twos and threes along the sidewalk so as not to provoke atten-
tion. It was a bitterly cold night, with a half-moon shining
brilliantly in a frosty, star-spangled sky. The men stopped and
gathered in a yard which faced a high building. The words
"Vemmissa Herald" were printed in gold lettering between the
brightly lit windows. From within came the clanking of the
printing press.
"Here, you," said Baldwin to McMurdo, "you can stand
below at the door and see that the road is kept open for us.
Arthur Willaby can stay with you. You others come with me.
Have no fears, boys; for we have a dozen witnesses that we are
in the Union Bar at this very moment."
It was nearly midnight, and the street was deserted save for
one or two revellers upon their way home. The party crossed the
road, and, pushing open the door of the newspaper office,
Baldwin and his men rushed in and up the stair which faced
them. McMurdo and another remained below. From the room
above came a shout, a cry for help, and then the sound of
trampling feet and of falling chairs. An instant later a gray-haired
man rushed out on the landing.
He was seized before he could get farther, and his spectacles
came tinkling down to McMurdo's feet. There was a thud and a
groan. He was on his face, and half a dozen sticks were clatter-
ing together as they fell upon him. He writhed, and his long, thin
limbs quivered under the blows. The others ceased at last; but
Baldwin, his cruel face set in an infernal smile, was hacking at
the man's head, which he vainly endeavoured to defend with his
arms. His white hair was dabbled with patches of blood. Bald-
win was still stooping over his victim, putting in a short,
vicious blow whenever he could see a part exposed, when
McMurdo dashed up the stair and pushed him back.
"You'll kill the man," said he. "Drop it!"
Baldwin looked at him in amazement. "Curse you!" he cried.
"Who are you to interfere -- you that are new to the lodge? Stand
back!" He raised his stick; but McMurdo had whipped his pistol
out of his hip pocket.
"Stand back yourself!" he cried. "I'll blow your face in if
you lay a hand on me. As to the lodge, wasn't it the order of the
Bodymaster that the man was not to be killed -- and what are you
doing but killing him?"
"It's truth he says," remarked one of the men.
"By Gar! you'd best hurry yourselves!" cried the man below.
"The windows are all lighting up, and you'll have the whole
town here inside of five minutes."
There was indeed the sound of shouting in the street, and a
little group of compositors and pressmen was forming in the hall
below and nerving itself to action. Leaving the limp and motion-
less body of the editor at the head of the stair, the criminals
rushed down and made their way swiftly along the street. Having
reached the Union House, some of them mixed with the crowd in
McGinty's saloon, whispering across the bar to the Boss that the
job had been well carried through. Others, and among them
McMurdo, broke away into side streets, and so by devious paths
to their own homes.
Chapter 4
The Valley of Fear
McMurdo read the note twice with the utmost surprise; for he
could not imagine what it meant or who was the author of it.
Had it been in a feminine hand, he might have imagined that it
was the beginning of one of those adventures which had been
familiar enough in his past life. But it was the writing of a man,
and of a well educated one, too. Finally, after some hesitation,
he determined to see the matter through.
Miller Hill is an ill-kept public park in the very centre of the
town. In summer it is a favourite resort of the people; but in
winter it is desolate enough. From the top of it one has a view
not only of the whole straggling, grimy town, but of the winding
valley beneath, with its scattered mines and factories blackening
the snow on each side of it, and of the wooded and white-capped
ranges flanking it.
McMurdo strolled up the winding path hedged in with ever-
greens until he reached the deserted restaurant which forms the
centre of summer gaiety. Beside it was a bare flagstaff, and
underneath it a man, his hat drawn down and the collar of his
overcoat turned up. When he turned his face McMurdo saw that
it was Brother Morris, he who had incurred the anger of the
Bodymaster the night before. The lodge sign was given and
exchanged as they met.
"I wanted to have a word with you, Mr. McMurdo," said the
older man, speaking with a hesitation which showed that he was
on delicate ground. "It was kind of you to come."
"Why did you not put your name to the note?"
"One has to be cautious, mister. One never knows in times
like these how a thing may come back to one. One never knows
either who to trust or who not to trust."
"Surely one may trust brothers of the lodge."
"No, no, not always," cried Morris with vehemence. "What-
ever we say, even what we think, seems to go back to that man
McGinty."
"Look here!" said McMurdo sternly. "It was only last night,
as you know well, that I swore good faith to our Bodymaster.
Would you be asking me to break my oath?"
"If that is the view you take," said Morris sadly, "I can only
say that I am sorry I gave you the trouble to come and meet me.
Things have come to a bad pass when two free citizens cannot
speak their thoughts to each other."
McMurdo, who had been watching his companion very nar-
rowly, relaxed somewhat in his bearing. "Sure I spoke for
myself only," said he. "I am a newcomer, as you know, and I
am strange to it all. It is not for me to open my mouth, Mr.
Morris, and if you think well to say anything to me I am here to
hear it."
"And to take it back to Boss McGinty!" said Morris bitterly.
"Indeed, then, you do me injustice there," cried McMurdo.
"For myself I am loyal to the lodge, and so l tell you straight;
but I would be a poor creature if I were to repeat to any other
what you might say to me in confidence. It will go no further
than me; though I warn you that you may get neither help nor
sympathy."
"I have given up looking for either the one or the other," said
Morris. "I may be putting my very life in your hands by what I
say; but, bad as you are -- and it seemed to me last night that you
were shaping to be as bad as the worst -- still you are new to it,
and your conscience cannot yet be as hardened as theirs. That
was why I thought to speak with you."
"Well, what have you to say?"
"If you give me away, may a curse be on you!"
"Sure, I said I would not."
"I would ask you, then, when you joined the Freeman's
society in Chicago and swore vows of charity and fidelity, did
ever it cross your mind that you might find it would lead you to
crime?"
"If you call it crime," McMurdo answered.
"Call it crime!" cried Morris, his voice vibrating with pas-
sion. "You have seen little of it if you can call it anything else.
Was it crime last night when a man old enough to be your father
was beaten till the blood dripped from his white hairs? Was that
crime -- or what else would you call it?"
"There are some would say it was war," said McMurdo, "a
war of two classes with all in, so that each struck as best it
could."
"Well, did you think of such a thing when you joined the
Freeman's society at Chicago?"
"No, I'm bound to say I did not."
"Nor did I when I joined it at Philadelphia. It was just a
benefit club and a meeting place for one's fellows. Then I heard
of this place -- curse the hour that the name first fell upon my
ears! -- and I came to better myself! My God! to better myself!
My wife and three children came with me. I started a drygoods
store on Market Square, and I prospered well. The word had
gone round that I was a Freeman, and I was forced to join the
local lodge, same as you did last night. I've the badge of shame
on my forearm and something worse branded on my heart. I
found that I was under the orders of a black villain and caught in
a meshwork of crime. What could I do? Every word I said to
make things better was taken as treason, same as it was last
night. I can't get away; for all I have in the world is in my store.
If I leave the society, I know well that it means murder to me,
and God knows what to my wife and children. Oh, man, it is
awful -- awful!" He put his hands to his face, and his body shook
with convulsive sobs.
McMurdo shrugged his shoulders. "You were too soft for the
job," said he. "You are the wrong sort for such work."
"I had a conscience and a religion; but they made me a
criminal among them. I was chosen for a job. If I backed down
I knew well what would come to me. Maybe I'm a coward.
Maybe it's the thought of my poor little woman and the children
that makes me one. Anyhow I went. I guess it will haunt me
forever.
"It was a lonely house, twenty miles from here, over the
range yonder. I was told off for the door, same as you were last
night. They could not trust me with the job. The others went in.
When they came out their hands were crimson to the wrists. As
we turned away a child was screaming out of the house behind
us. It was a boy of five who had seen his father murdered. I
nearly fainted with the horror of it, and yet I had to keep a bold
and smiling face; for well I knew that if I did not it would be out
of my house that they would come next with their bloody hands
and it would be my little Fred that would be screaming for his
father.
"But I was a criminal then, part sharer in a murder, lost
forever in this world, and lost also in the next. I am a good
Catholic; but the priest would have no word with me when he
heard I was a Scowrer, and I am excommunicated from my faith.
That's how it stands with me. And T see you going down the
same road, and I ask you what the end is to be. Are you ready to
be a cold-blooded murderer also, or can we do anything to stop
it?"
"What would you do?" asked McMurdo abruptly. "You
would not inform?"
"God forbid!" cried Morris. "Sure, the very thought would
cost me my life."
"That's well," said McMurdo. "I'm thinking that you are a
weak man and that you make too much of the matter."
"Too much! Wait till you have lived here longer. Look down
the valley! See the cloud of a hundred chimneys that overshad-
ows it! I tell you that the cloud of murder hangs thicker and
lower than that over the heads of the people. It is the Valley of
Fear, the Valley of Death. The terror is in the hearts of the
people from the dusk to the dawn. Wait, young man, and you
will learn for yourself."
"Well, I'll let you know what I think when I have seen
more," said McMurdo carelessly. "What is very clear is that
you are not the man for the place, and that the sooner you sell
out -- if you only get a dime a dollar for what the business is
worth -- the better it will be for you. What you have said is safe
with me; but, by Gar! if I thought you were an informer --"
"No, no!" cried Morris piteously.
"Well, let it rest at that. I'll bear what you have said in mind,
and maybe some day I'll come back to it. I expect you meant
kindly by speaking to me like this. Now I'll be getting home."
"One word before you go," said Morris. "We may have been
seen together. They may want to know what we have spoken
about."
"Ah! that's well thought of."
"I offer you a clerkship in my store."
"And I refuse it. That's our business. Well, so long, Brother
Morris, and may you find things go better with you in the
future."
That same afternoon, as McMurdo sat smoking, lost in thought
beside the stove of his sitting-room, the door swung open and its
framework was filled with the huge figure of Boss McGinty. He
passed the sign, and then seating himself opposite to the young
man he looked at him steadily for some time, a look which was
as steadily returned.
"I'm not much of a visitor, Brother McMurdo," he said at
last. "I guess I am too busy over the folk that visit me. But I
thought I'd stretch a point and drop down to see you in your own
house."
"I'm proud to see you here, Councillor," McMurdo answered
heartily, bringing his whisky bottle out of the cupboard. "It's an
honour that I had not expected."
"How's the arm?" asked the Boss.
McMurdo made a wry face. "Well, I'm not forgetting it," he
said; "but it's worth it."
"Yes, it's worth it," the other answered, "to those that are
loyal and go through with it and are a help to the lodge. What
were you speaking to Brother Morris about on Miller Hill this
morning?"
The question came so suddenly that it was well that he had his
answer prepared. He burst into a hearty laugh. "Morris didn't
know I could earn a living here at home. He shan't know either;
for he has got too much conscience for the likes of me. But he's
a good-hearted old chap. It was his idea that I was at a loose
end, and that he would do me a good turn by offering me a
clerkship in a drygoods store."
"Oh, that was it?"
"Yes, that was it."
"And you refused it?"
"Sure. Couldn't I earn ten times as much in my own bedroom
with four hours' work?"
"That's so. But I wouldn't get about too much with Morris."
"Why not?"
"Well, I guess because I tell you not. That's enough for most
folk in these parts."
"It may be enough for most folk; but it ain't enough for me,
Councillor," said McMurdo boldly. "If you are a judge of men,
you'll know that."
The swarthy giant glared at him, and his hairy paw closed for
an instant round the glass as though he would hurl it at the head
of his companion. Then he laughed in his loud, boisterous,
insincere fashion.
"You're a queer card, for sure," said he. "Well, if you want
reasons, I'll give them. Did Morris say nothing to you against
the lodge?"
"No."
"Nor against me?"
"No."
"Well, that's because he daren't trust you. But in his heart he
is not a loyal brother. We know that well. So we watch him and
we wait for the time to admonish him. I'm thinking that the time
is drawing near. There's no room for scabby sheep in our pen.
But if you keep company with a disloyal man, we might think
that you were disloyal, too. See?"
"There's no chance of my keeping company with him; for I
dislike the man," McMurdo answered. "As to being disloyal, if
it was any man but you he would not use the word to me twice."
"Well, that's enough," said McGinty, draining off his glass.
"I came down to give you a word in season, and you've had it."
"I'd like to know," said McMurdo, "how you ever came to
learn that I had spoken with Morris at all?"
McGinty laughed. "It's my business to know what goes on in
this township," said he. "I guess you'd best reckon on my
hearing all that passes. Well, time's up, and I'll just say --"
But his leavetaking was cut short in a very unexpected fash-
ion. With a sudden crash the door flew open, and three frown-
ing, intent faces glared in at them from under the peaks of police
caps. McMurdo sprang to his feet and half drew his revolver; but
his arm stopped midway as he became conscious that two Win-
chester rifles were levelled at his head. A man in uniform
advanced into the room, a six-shooter in his hand. It was Captain
Marvin, once of Chicago, and now of the Mine Constabulary.
He shook his head with a half-smile at McMurdo.
"I thought you'd be getting into trouble, Mr. Crooked
McMurdo of Chicago," said he. "Can't keep out of it, can you?
Take your hat and come along with us."
"I guess you'll pay for this, Captain Marvin," said McGinty.
"Who are you, I'd like to know, to break into a house in this
fashion and molest honest, law-abiding men?"
"You're standing out in this deal, Councillor McGinty," said
the police captain. "We are not out after you, but after this man
McMurdo. It is for you to help, not to hinder us in our duty,"
"He is a friend of mine, and I'll answer for his conduct," said
the Boss.
"By all accounts, Mr. McGinty, you may have to answer for
your own conduct some of these days," the captain answered.
"This man McMurdo was a crook before ever he came here, and
he's a crook still. Cover him, Patrolman, while I disarm him."
"There's my pistol," said McMurdo coolly. "Maybe, Cap-
tain Marvin, if you and I were alone and face to face you would
not take me so easily."
"Where's your warrant?" asked McGinty. "By Gar! a man
might as well live in Russia as in Vemmissa while folk like you
are running the police. It's a capitalist outrage, and you'll hear
more of it, I reckon."
"You do what you think is your duty the best way you can,
Councillor. We'll look after ours."
"What am I accused of?" asked McMurdo.
"Of being concerned in the beating of old Editor Stanger at
the Herald office. It wasn't your fault that it isn't a murder
charge."
"Well, if that's all you have against him," cried McGinty
with a laugh, "you can save yourself a deal of trouble by
dropping it right now. This man was with me in my saloon
playing poker up to midnight, and I can bring a dozen to prove
it."
"That's your affair, and I guess you can settle it in court
to-morrow. Meanwhile, come on, McMurdo, and come quietly
if you don't want a gun across your head. You stand wide,
Mr. McGinty; for I warn you I will stand no resistance when
I am on duty!"
So determined was the appearance of the captain that both
McMurdo and his boss were forced to accept the situation. The
latter managed to have a few whispered words with the prisoner
before they parted.
"What about --" he jerked his thumb upward to signify the
coining plant.
"All right," whispered McMurdo, who had devised a safe
hiding place under the floor.
"I'll bid you good-bye," said the Boss, shaking hands. "I'll
see Reilly the lawyer and take the defense upon myself. Take my
word for it that they won't be able to hold you."
"I wouldn't bet on that. Guard the prisoner, you two, and
shoot him if he tries any games. I'll search the house before I
leave."
He did so; but apparently found no trace of the concealed
plant. When he had descended he and his men escorted McMurdo
to headquarters. Darkness had fallen, and a keen blizzard
was blowing so that the streets were nearly deserted; but a few
loiterers followed the group, and emboldened by invisibility
shouted imprecations at the prisoner.
"Lynch the cursed Scowrer!" they cried. "Lynch him!" They
laughed and jeered as he was pushed into the police station.
After a short, formal examination from the inspector in charge he
was put into the common cell. Here he found Baldwin and three
other criminals of the night before, all arrested that afternoon and
waiting their trial next morning.
But even within this inner fortress of the law the long arm of
the Freemen was able to extend. Late at night there came a jailer
with a straw bundle for their bedding, out of which he extracted
two bottles of whisky, some glasses, and a pack of cards. They
spent a hilarious night, without an anxious thought as to the
ordeal of the morning.
Nor had they cause, as the result was to show. The magistrate
could not possibly, on the evidence, have held them for a higher
court. On the one hand the compositors and pressmen were forced
to admit that the light was uncertain, that they were themselves
much perturbed, and that it was difficult for them to swear to the
identity of the assailants; although they believed that the accused
were among them. Cross examined by the clever attorney who
had been engaged by McGinty, they were even more nebulous in
their evidence.
The injured man had already deposed that he was so taken by
surprise by the suddenness of the attack that he could state
nothing beyond the fact that the first man who struck him wore a
moustache. He added that he knew them to be Scowrers, since
no one else in the community could possibly have any enmity to
him, and he had long been threatened on account of his outspo-
ken editorials. On the other hand, it was clearly shown by the
united and unfaltering evidence of six citizens, including that
high municipal official, Councillor McGinty, that the men had
been at a card party at the Union House until an hour very much
later than the commission of the outrage.
Needless to say that they were discharged with something very
near to an apology from the bench for the inconvenience to
which they had been put, together with an implied censure of
Captain Marvin and the police for their officious zeal.
The verdict was greeted with loud applause by a court in
which McMurdo saw many familiar faces. Brothers of the lodge
smiled and waved. But there were others who sat with com-
pressed lips and brooding eyes as the men filed out of the dock.
One of them, a little, dark-bearded, resolute fellow, put the
thoughts of himself and comrades into words as the ex-prisoners
passed him.
"You damned murderers!" he said. "We'll fix you yet!"
Chapter 5
The Darkest Hour
If anything had been needed to give an impetus to Jack McMur-
do's popularity among his fellows it would have been his arrest
and acquittal. That a man on the very night of joining the lodge
should have done something which brought him before the
magistrate was a new record in the annals of the society. Already
he had earned the reputation of a good boon companion, a
cheery reveller, and withal a man of high temper, who would not
take an insult even from the all-powerful Boss himself. But in
addition to this he impressed his comrades with the idea that
among them all there was not one whose brain was so ready to
devise a bloodthirsty scheme, or whose hand would be more
capable of carrying it out. "He'll be the boy for the clean job,"
said the oldsters to one another, and waited their time until they
could set him to his work.
McGinty had instruments enough already; but he recognized
that this was a supremely able one. He felt like a man holding a
fierce bloodhound in leash. There were curs to do the smaller
work; but some day he would slip this creature upon its prey. A
few members of the lodge, Ted Baldwin among them, resented
the rapid rise of the stranger and hated him for it; but they kept
clear of him, for he was as ready to fight as to laugh.
But if he gained favour with his fellows, there was another
quarter, one which had become even more vital to him, in which
he lost it. Ettie Shafter's father would have nothing more to do
with him, nor would he allow him to enter the house. Ettie
herself was too deeply in love to give him up altogether, and yet
her own good sense warned her of what would come from a
marriage with a man who was regarded as a criminal.
One morning after a sleepless night she determined to see him,
possibly for the last time, and make one strong endeavour to
draw him from those evil influences which were sucking him
down. She went to his house, as he had often begged her to do,
and made her way into the room which he used as his sitting-
room. He was seated at a table, with his back turned and a letter
in front of him. A sudden spirit of girlish mischief came over
her -- she was still only nineteen. He had not heard her when she
pushed open the door. Now she tiptoed forward and laid her
hand lightly upon his bended shoulders.
If she had expected to startle him, she certainly succeeded; but
only in turn to be startled herself. With a tiger spring he turned
on her, and his right hand was feeling for her throat. At the same
instant with the other hand he crumpled up the paper that lay
before him. For an instant he stood glaring. Then astonishment
and joy took the place of the ferocity which had convulsed his
features -- a ferocity which had sent her shrinking back in horror
as from something which had never before intruded into her
gentle life.
"It's you!" said he, mopping his brow. "And to think that
you should come to me, heart of my heart, and I should find
nothing better to do than to want to strangle you! Come then,
darling," and he held out his arms, "let me make it up to you."
But she had not recovered from that sudden glimpse of guilty
fear which she had read in the man's face. All her woman's
instinct told her that it was not the mere fright of a man who is
startled. Guilt -- that was it -- guilt and fear!
"What's come over you, lack?" she cried. "Why were you
so scared of me? Oh, Jack, if your conscience was at ease, you
would not have looked at me like that!"
"Sure, I was thinking of other things, and when you came
tripping so lightly on those fairy feet of yours --"
"No, no, it was more than that, Jack." Then a sudden suspi-
cion seized her. "Let me see that letter you were writing."
"Ah, Ettie, I couldn't do that."
Her suspicions became certainties. "It's to another woman,"
she cried. "I know it! Why else should you hold it from me?
Was it to your wife that you were writing? How am I to know
that you are not a married man -- you, a stranger, that nobody
knows?"
"I am not married, Ettie. See now, I swear it! You're the only
one woman on earth to me. By the cross of Christ I swear it!"
He was so white with passionate earnestness that she could not
but believe him.
"Well, then," she cried, "why will you not show me the
letter?"
"I'll tell you, acushla," said he. "I'm under oath not to show
it, and just as I wouldn't break my word to you so I would keep
it to those who hold my promise. It's the business of the lodge,
and even to you it's secret. And if I was scared when a hand fell
on me, can't you understand it when it might have been the hand
of a detective?"
She felt that he was telling the truth. He gathered her into his
arms and kissed away her fears and doubts.
"Sit here by me, then. It's a queer throne for such a queen;
but it's the best your poor lover can find. He'll do better for you
some of these days, I'm thinking. Now your mind is easy once
again, is it not?"
"How can it ever be at ease, Jack, when I know that you are a
criminal among criminals, when I never know the day that I may
hear you are in court for murder? 'McMurdo the Scowrer,' that's
what one of oor boarders called you yesterday. It went through
my heart like a knife."
"Sure, hard words break no bones."
"But they were true."
"Well, dear, it's not so bad as you think. We are but poor
men that are trying in our own way to get our rights."
Ettie threw her arms round her lover's neck. "Give it up,
Jack! For my sake, for God's sake, give it up! It was to ask you
that I came here to-day. Oh, Jack, see -- I beg it of you on my
bended knees! Kneeling here before you I implore you to give it
up!"
He raised her and soothed her with her head against his breast.
"Sure, my darlin', you don't know what it is you are asking.
How could I give it up when it would be to break my oath and to
desert my comrades? If you could see how things stand with me
you could never ask it of me. Besides, if I wanted to, how could
I do it? You don't suppose that the lodge would let a man go free
with all its secrets?"
"I've thought of that, Jack. I've planned it all. Father has
saved some money. He is weary of this place where the fear of
these people darkens our lives. He is ready to go. We would fly
together to Philadelphia or New York, where we would be safe
from them."
McMurdo laughed. "The lodge has a long arm. Do you think
it could not stretch from here to Philadelphia or New York?"
"Well, then, to the West, or to England, or to Germany,
where father came from -- anywhere to get away from this Val-
ley of Fear!"
McMurdo thought of old Brother Morris. "Sure, it is the second
time I have heard the valley so named," said he. "The shadow
does indeed seem to lie heavy on some of you."
"It darkens every moment of our lives. Do you suppose that
Ted Baldwin has ever forgiven us? If it were not that he fears
you, what do you suppose our chances would be? If you saw the
look in those dark, hungry eyes of his when they fall on me!"
"By Gar! I'd teach him better manners if I caught him at it!
But see here, little girl. I can't leave here. I can't -- take that
from me once and for all. But if you will leave me to find my
own way, I will try to prepare a way of getting honourably out of
it."
"There is no honour in such a matter."
"Well, well, it's just how you look at it. But if you'll give me
six months, I'll work it so that I can leave without being ashamed
to look others in the face."
The girl laughed with joy. "Six months!" she cried. "Is it a
promise?"
"Well, it may be seven or eight. But within a year at the
furthest we will leave the valley behind us."
It was the most that Ettie could obtain, and yet it was some-
thing. There was this distant light to illuminate the gloom of the
immediate future. She returned to her father's house more light-
hearted than she had ever been since Jack McMurdo had come
into her life.
It might be thought that as a member, all the doings of the
society would be told to him; but he was soon to discover that
the organization was wider and more complex than the simple
lodge. Even Boss McGinty was ignorant as to many things; for
there was an official named the County Delegate, living at
Hobson's Patch farther down the line, who had power over
several different lodges which he wielded in a sudden and arbi-
trary way. Only once did McMurdo see him, a sly, little gray-
haired rat of a man, with a slinking gait and a sidelong glance
which was charged with malice. Evans Pott was his name, and
even the great Boss of Vermissa felt towards him something of
the repulsion and fear which the huge Danton may have felt for
the puny but dangerous Robespierre.
One day Scanlan, who was McMurdo's fellow boarder, re-
ceived a note from McGinty inclosing one from Evans Pott,
which informed him that he was sending over two good men
Lawler and Andrews, who had instructions to act in the
neighbourhood; though it was best for the cause that no particu-
lars as to their objects should be given. Would the Bodymaster
see to it that suitable arrangements be made for their lodgings
and comfort until the time for action should arrive? McGinty
added that it was impossible for anyone to remain secret at the
Union House, and that, therefore, he would be obliged if
McMurdo and Scanlan would put the strangers up for a few days in
their boarding house.
The same evening the two men arrived, each carrying his
gripsack. Lawler was an elderly man, shrewd, silent, and self-
contained, clad in an old black frock coat, which with his soft
felt hat and ragged, grizzled beard gave him a general resem-
blance to an itinerant preacher. His companion Andrews was
little more than a boy, frank-faced and cheerful, with the breezy
manner of one who is out for a holiday and means to enjoy every
minute of it. Both men were total abstainers, and behaved in all
ways as exemplary members of the society, with the one simple
exception that they were assassins who had often proved them-
selves to be most capable instruments for this association of
murder. Lawler had already carried out fourteen commissions of
the kind, and Andrews three.
They were, as McMurdo found, quite ready to converse about
their deeds in the past, which they recounted with the half-
bashful pride of men who had done good and unselfish service
for the community. They were reticent, however, as to the
immediate job in hand.
"They chose us because neither I nor the boy here drink,"
Lawler explained. "They can count on us saying no more than
we should. You must not take it amiss, but it is the orders of the
County Delegate that we obey."
"Sure, we are all in it together," said Scanlan, McMurdo's
mate, as the four sat together at supper.
"That's true enough, and we'll talk till the cows come home
of the killing of Charlie Williams or of Simon Bird, or any other
job in the past. But till the work is done we say nothing."
"There are half a dozen about here that I have a word to say
to," said McMurdo, with an oath. "I suppose it isn't Jack Knox
of Ironhill that you are after. I'd go some way to see him get his
deserts."
"No, it's not him yet."
"Or Herman Strauss?"
"No, nor him either."
"Well, if you won't tell us we can't make you; but I'd be glad
to know."
Lawler smiled and shook his head. He was not to be drawn.
In spite of the reticence of their guests, Scanlan and McMurdo
were quite determined to be present at what they called "the
fun." When, therefore, at an early hour one morning McMurdo
heard them creeping down the stairs he awakened Scanlan, and
the two hurried on their clothes. When they were dressed they
found that the others had stolen out, leaving the door open
behind them. It was not yet dawn, and by the light of the lamps
they could see the two men some distance down the street. They
followed them warily, treading noiselessly in the deep snow.
The boarding house was near the edge of the town, and soon
they were at the crossroads which is beyond its boundary. Here
three men were waiting, with whom Lawler and Andrews held a
short, eager conversation. Then they all moved on together. It
was clearly some notable job which needed numbers. At this
point there are several trails which lead to various mines. The
strangers took that which led to the Crow Hill, a huge business
which was in strong hands which had been able, thanks to their
energetic and fearless New England manager, Josiah H. Dunn,
to keep some order and discipline during the long reign of terror.
Day was breaking now, and a line of workmen were slowly
making their way, singly and in groups, along the blackened
path.
McMurdo and Scanlan strolled on with the others, keeping in
sight of the men whom they followed. A thick mist lay over
them, and from the heart of it there came the sudden scream of a
steam whistle. It was the ten-minute signal before the cages
descended and the day's labour began.
When they reached the open space round the mine shaft there
were a hundred miners waiting, stamping their feet and blowing
on their fingers; for it was bitterly cold. The strangers stood in a
little group under the shadow of the engine house. Scanlan and
McMurdo climbed a heap of slag from which the whole scene
lay before them. They saw the mine engineer, a great bearded
Scotchman named Menzies, come out of the engine house and
blow his whistle for the cages to be lowered.
At the same instant a tall, loose-framed young man with a
clean-shaved, earnest face advanced eagerly towards the pit head.
As he came forward his eyes fell upon the group, silent and
motionless, under the engine house. The men had drawn down
their hats and turned up their collars to screen their faces. For a
moment the presentiment of Death laid its cold hand upon the
manager's heart. At the next he had shaken it off and saw only
his duty towards intrusive strangers.
"Who are you?" he asked as he advanced. "What are you
loitering there for?"
There was no answer; but the lad Andrews stepped forward
and shot him in the stomach. The hundred waiting miners stood
as motionless and helpless as if they were paralyzed. The man-
ager clapped his two hands to the wound and doubled himself
up. Then he staggered away; but another of the assassins fired,
and he went down sidewise, kicking and clawing among a heap
of clinkers. Menzies, the Scotchman, gave a roar of rage at the
sight and rushed with an iron spanner at the murderers; but was
met by two balls in the face which dropped him dead at their
very feet.
There was a surge forward of some of the miners, and an
inarticulate cry of pity and of anger; but a couple of the strangers
emptied their six-shooters over the heads of the crowd, and they
broke and scattered, some of them rushing wildly back to their
homes in Vermissa.
When a few of the bravest had rallied, and there was a return
to the mine, the murderous gang had vanished in the mists of
morning, without a single witness being able to swear to the
identity of these men who in front of a hundred spectators had
wrought this double crime.
Scanlan and McMurdo made their way back; Scanlan some-
what subdued, for it was the first murder job that he had seen
with his own eyes, and it appeared less funny than he had been
led to believe. The horrible screams of the dead manager's
wife pursued them as they hurried to the town. McMurdo was
absorbed and silent; but he showed no sympathy for the weaken-
ing of his companion.
"Sure, it is like a war," he repeated. "What is it but a war
between us and them, and we hit back where we best can."
There was high revel in the lodge room at the Union House
that night, not only over the killing of the manager and engineer
of the Crow Hill mine, which would bring this organization into
line with the other blackmailed and terror-stricken companies of
the district, but also over a distant triumph which had been
wrought by the hands of the lodge itself.
It would appear that when the County Delegate had sent over
five good men to strike a blow in Vermissa, he had demanded
that in return three Vermissa men should be secretly selected and
sent across to kill William Hales of Stake Royal, one of the best
known and most popular mine owners in the Gilmerton district, a
man who was believed not to have an enemy in the world; for he
was in all ways a model employer. He had insisted, however,
upon efficiency in the work, and had, therefore, paid off certain
drunken and idle employees who were members of the all-
powerful society. Coffin notices hung outside his door had not
weakened his resolution, and so in a free, civilized country he
found himself condemned to death.
The execution had now been duly carried out. Ted Baldwin,
who sprawled now in the seat of honour beside the Bodymaster,
had been chief of the party. His flushed face and glazed, blood-
shot eyes told of sleeplessness and drink. He and his two com-
rades had spent the night before among the mountains. They
were unkempt and weather-stained. But no heroes, returning
from a forlorn hope, could have had a warmer welcome from
their comrades.
The story was told and retold amid cries of delight and shouts
of laughter. They had waited for their man as he drove home at
nightfall, taking their station at the top of a steep hill, where his
horse must be at a walk. He was so furred to keep out the cold
that he could not lay his hand on his pistol. They had pulled him
out and shot him again and again. He had screamed for mercy.
The screams were repeated for the amusement of the lodge.
"Let's hear again how he squealed," they cried.
None of them knew the man; but there is eternal drama in a
killing, and they had shown the Scowrers of Gilmerton that the
Vermissa men were to be relied upon.
There had been one contretemps; for a man and his wife had
driven up while they were still emptying their revolvers into the
silent body. It had been suggested that they should shoot them
both; but they were harmless folk who were not connected with
the mines, so they were sternly bidden to drive on and keep
silent, lest a worse thing befall them. And so the blood-mottled
figure had been left as a warning to all such hard-hearted em-
ployers, and the three noble avengers had hurried off into the
mountains where unbroken nature comes down to the very edge
of the furnaces and the slag heaps. Here they were, safe and
sound, their work well done, and the plaudits of their compan-
ions in their ears.
It had been a great day for the Scowrers. The shadow had
fallen even darker over the valley. But as the wise general
chooses the moment of victory in which to redouble his efforts,
so that his foes may have no time to steady themselves after
disaster, so Boss McGinty, looking out upon the scene of his
operations with his brooding and malicious eyes, had devised a
new attack upon those who opposed him. That very night, as the
half-drunken company broke up, he touched McMurdo on the
arm and led him aside into that inner room where they had their
first interview.
"See here, my lad," said he, "I've got a job that's worthy of
you at last. You'll have the doing of it in your own hands."
"Proud I am to hear it," McMurdo answered.
"You can take two men with you -- Manders and Reilly. They
have been warned for service. We'll never be right in this district
until Chester Wilcox has been settled, and you'll have the thanks
of every lodge in the coal fields if you can down him."
"I'll do my best, anyhow. Who is he, and where shall I find
him?"
McGinty took his eternal half-chewed, half-smoked cigar from
the corner of his mouth, and proceeded to draw a rough diagram
on a page torn from his notebook.
"He's the chief foreman of the Iron Dike Company. He's a
hard citizen, an old colour sergeant of the war, all scars and
grizzle. We've had two tries at him; but had no luck, and Jim
Carnaway lost his life over it. Now it's for you to take it over.
That's the house -- all alone at the Iron Dike crossroad, same as
you see here on the map -- without another within earshot. It's no
good by day. He's armed and shoots quick and straight, with no
questions asked. But at night -- well, there he is with his wife
three children, and a hired help. You can't pick or choose. It's
all or none. If you could get a bag of blasting powder at the front
door with a slow match to it "
"What's the man done?"
"Didn't I tell you he shot Jim Camaway?"
"Why did he shoot him?"
"What in thunder has that to do with you? Carnaway was
about his house at night, and he shot him. That's enough for me
and you. You've got to settle the thing right."
"There's these two women and the children. Do they go up
too?"
"They have to -- else how can we get him?"
"It seems hard on them; for they've done nothing."
"What sort of fool's talk is this? Do you back out?"
"Easy, Councillor, easy! What have I ever said or done that
you should think I would be after standing back from an order of
the Bodymaster of my own lodge? If it's right or if it's wrong,
it's for you to decide."
"You'll do it, then?"
"Of course I will do it."
"When?"
"Well, you had best give me a night or two that I may see the
house and make my plans. Then --"
"Very good," said McGinty, shaking him by the hand. "I
leave it with you. It will be a great day when you bring us the
news. It's just the last stroke that will bring them all to their
knees."
McMurdo thought long and deeply over the commission which
had been so suddenly placed in his hands. The isolated house in
which Chester Wilcox lived was about five miles off in an
adjacent valley. That very night he started off all alone to
prepare for the attempt. It was daylight before he returned from
his reconnaissance. Next day he interviewed his two subordi-
nates, Manders and Reilly, reckless youngsters who were as
elated as if it were a deer-hunt.
Two nights later they met outside the town, all three armed,
and one of them carrying a sack stuffed with the powder which
was used in the quarries. It was two in the morning before they
came to the lonely house. The night was a windy one, with
broken clouds drifting swiftly across the face of a three-quarter
moon. They had been warned to be on their guard against
bloodhounds; so they moved forward cautiously, with their pis-
tols cocked in their hands. But there was no sound save the
howling of the wind, and no movement but the swaying branches
above them.
McMurdo listened at the door of the lonely house; but all was
still within. Then he leaned the powder bag against it, ripped a
hole in it with his knife, and attached the fuse. When it was well
alight he and his two companions took to their heels, and were
some distance off, safe and snug in a sheltering ditch, before the
shattering roar of the explosion, with the low, deep rumble of the
collapsing building, told them that their work was done. No
cleaner job had ever been carried out in the bloodstained annals
of the society.
But alas that work so well organized and boldly carried out
should all have gone for nothing! Warned by the fate of the
various victims, and knowing that he was marked down for
destruction, Chester Wilcox had moved himself and his family
only the day before to some safer and less known quarters,
where a guard of police should watch over them. It was an empty
house which had been torn down by the gunpowder, and the
grim old colour sergeant of the war was still teaching discipline
to the miners of Iron Dike.
"Leave him to me," said McMurdo. "He's my man, and I'll
get him sure if I have to wait a year for him."
A vote of thanks and confidence was passed in full lodge, and
so for the time the matter ended. When a few weeks later it was
reported in the papers that Wilcox had been shot at from an
ambuscade, it was an open secret that McMurdo was still at
work upon his unfinished job.
Such were the methods of the Society of Freemen, and such
were the deeds of the Scowrers by which they spread their rule
of fear over the great and rich district which was for so long a
period haunted by their terrible presence. Why should these
pages be stained by further crimes? Have I not said enough to
show the men and their methods?
These deeds are written in history, and there are records
wherein one may read the details of them. There one may learn
of the shooting of Policemen Hunt and Evans because they
had ventured to arrest two members of the society -- a double
outrage planned at the Vermissa lodge and carried out in cold
blood upon two helpless and disarmed men. There also one may
read of the shooting of Mrs. Larbey when she was nursing her
husband, who had been beaten almost to death by orders of
Boss McGinty. The killing of the elder Jenkins, shortly fol-
lowed by that of his brother, the mutilation of James Murdoch,
the blowing up of the Staphouse family, and the murder of the
Stendals all followed hard upon one another in the same terrible
winter.
Darkly the shadow lay upon the Valley of Fear. The spring
had come with running brooks and blossoming trees. There was
hope for all Nature bound so long in an iron grip; but nowhere
was there any hope for the men and women who lived under the
yoke of the terror. Never had the cloud above them been so dark
and hopeless as in the early summer of the year 1875.
Chapter 6
Danger
McMurdo sat in silence for some time, with the letter in his
listless hands. The mist had lifted for a moment, and there was
the abyss before him.
"Does anyone else know of this?" he asked.
"I have told no one else."
"But this man -- your friend -- has he any other person that he
would be likely to write to?"
"Well, I dare say he knows one or two more."
"Of the lodge?"
"It's likely enough."
"I was asking because it is likely that he may have given
some description of this fellow Birdy Edwards -- then we could
get on his trail."
"Well, it's possible. But I should not think he knew him. He
is just telling me the news that came to him by way of business.
How would he know this Pinkerton man?"
McMurdo gave a violent start.
"By Gar!" he cried, "I've got him. What a fool I was not to
know it. Lord! but we're in luck! We will fix him before he can
do any harm. See here, Morris, will you leave this thing in my
hands?"
"Sure, if you will only take it off mine."
"I'll do that. You can stand right back and let me run it. Even
your name need not be mentioned. I'll take it all on myself, as if
it were to me that this letter has come. Will that content you?"
"lt's just what I would ask."
"Then leave it at that and keep your head shut. Now I'll get
down to the lodge, and we'll soon make old man Pinkerton sorry
for himself."
"You wouldn't kill this man?"
"The less you know, Friend Morris, the easier your con-
science will be, and the better you will sleep. Ask no questions,
and let these things settle themselves. I have hold of it now."
Morris shook his head sadly as he left. "I feel that his blood is
on my hands," he groaned.
"Self-protection is no murder, anyhow," said McMurdo, smil-
ing grimly. "It's him or us. I guess this man would destroy us
all if we left him long in the valley. Why, Brother Morris, we'll
have to elect you Bodymaster yet; for you've surely saved the
lodge."
And yet it was clear from his actions that he thought more
seriously of this new intrusion than his words would show. It
may have been his guilty conscience, it may have been the
reputation of the Pinkerton organization, it may have been the
knowledge that great, rich corporations had set themselves the
task of clearing out the Scowrers; but, whatever his reason, his
actions were those of a man who is preparing for the worst.
Every paper which would incriminate him was destroyed before
he left the house. After that he gave a long sigh of satisfaction;
for it seemed to him that he was safe. And yet the danger must
still have pressed somewhat upon him; for on his way to the
lodge he stopped at old man Shafter's. The house was forbidden
him; but when he tapped at the window Ettie came out to him.
The dancing Irish deviltry had gone from her lover's eyes. She
read his danger in his earnest face.
"Something has happened!" she cried. "Oh, Jack, you are in
danger!"
"Sure, it is not very bad, my sweetheart. And yet it may be
wise that we make a move before it is worse."
"Make a move?"
"I promised you once that I would go some day. I think the
time is coming. I had news to-night, bad news, and I see trouble
coming."
"The police?"
"Well, a Pinkerton. But, sure, you wouldn't know what that
is, acushla, nor what it may mean to the likes of me. I'm too
deep in this thing, and I may have to get out of it quick. You
said you would come with me if I went."
"Oh, Jack, it would be the saving of you!"
"I'm an honest man in some things, Ettie. I wouldn't hurt a
hair of your bonny head for all that the world can give, nor ever
pull you down one inch from the golden throne above the clouds
where I always see you. Would you trust me?"
She put her hand in his without a word. "Well, then, listen to
what I say, and do as I order you, for indeed it's the only way
for us. Things are going to happen in this valley. I feel it in my
bones. There may be many of us that will have to look out for
ourselves. I'm one, anyhow. If I go, by day or night, it's you
that must come with me!"
"I'd come after you, Jack."
"No, no, you shall come with me. If this valley is closed to
me and I can never come back, how can I leave you behind, and
me perhaps in hiding from the police with never a chance of a
message? It's with me you must come. I know a good woman in
the place I come from, and it's there I'd leave you till we can get
married. Will you come?"
"Yes, Jack, I will come."
"God bless you for your trust in me! It's a fiend out of hell
that I should be if I abused it. Now, mark you, Ettie, it will be
just a word to you, and when it reaches you, you will drop
everything and come right down to the waiting room at the depot
and stay there till I come for you."
"Day or night, I'll come at the word, Jack."
Somewhat eased in mind, now that his own preparations for
escape had been begun, McMurdo went on to the lodge. It had
already assembled, and only by complicated signs and counter-
signs could he pass through the outer guard and inner guard who
close-tiled it. A buzz of pleasure and welcome greeted him as he
entered. The long room was crowded, and through the haze of
tobacco smoke he saw the tangled black mane of the Bodymaster
the cruel, unfriendly features of Baldwin, the vulture face of
Harraway, the secretary, and a dozen more who were among the
leaders of the lodge. He rejoiced that they should all be there to
take counsel over his news.
"Indeed, it's glad we are to see you, Brother!" cried the
chairman. "There's business here that wants a Solomon in judg-
ment to set it right."
"It's Lander and Egan," explained his neighbour as he took
his seat. "They both claim the head money given by the lodge
for the shooting of old man Crabbe over at Stylestown, and
who's to say which fired the bullet?"
McMurdo rose in his place and raised his hand. The expres-
sion of his face froze the attention of the audience. There was a
dead hush of expectation.
"Eminent Bodymaster," he said, in a solemn voice, "I claim
urgency!"
"Brother McMurdo claims urgency," said McGinty. "It's a
claim that by the rules of this lodge takes precedence. Now
Brother, we attend you."
McMurdo took the letter from his pocket.
"Eminent Bodymaster and Brethren," he said, "I am the
bearer of ill news this day; but it is better that it should be known
and discussed, than that a blow should fall upon us without
warning which would destroy us all. I have information that the
most powerful and richest organizations in this state have bound
themselves together for our destruction, and that at this very
moment there is a Pinkerton detective, one Birdy Edwards, at
work in the valley collecting the evidence which may put a rope
round the necks of many of us, and send every man in this room
into a felon's cell. That is the situation for the discussion of
which I have made a claim of urgency."
There was a dead silence in the room. It was broken by the
chairman.
"What is your evidence for this, Brother McMurdo?" he
asked.
"It is in this letter which has come into my hands," said
McMurdo. Me read the passage aloud. "It is a matter of honour
with me that I can give no further particulars about the letter, nor
put it into your hands; but I assure you that there is nothing else
in it which can affect the interests of the lodge. I put the case
before you as it has reached me."
"Let me say, Mr. Chairman," said one of the older brethren,
"that I have heard of Birdy Edwards, and that he has the name
of being the best man in the Pinkerton service."
"Does anyone know him by sight?" asked McGinty.
"Yes," said McMurdo, "I do."
There was a murmur of astonishment through the hall.
"I believe we hold him in the hollow of our hands," he
continued with an exulting smile upon his face. "If we act
quickly and wisely, we can cut this thing short. If I have your
confidence and your help, it is little that we have to fear."
"What have we to fear, anyhow? What can he know of our
affairs?"
"You might say so if all were as stanch as you, Councillor.
But this man has all the millions of the capitalists at his back. Do
you think there is no weaker brother among all our lodges that
could not be bought? He will get at our secrets -- maybe has got
them already. There's only one sure cure."
"That he never leaves the valley," said Baldwin.
McMurdo nodded. "Good for you, Brother Baldwin," he
said. "You and I have had our differences, but you have said the
true word to-night."
"Where is he, then? Where shall we know him?"
"Eminent Bodymaster," said McMurdo, earnestly, "I would
put it to you that this is too vital a thing for us to discuss in open
lodge. God forbid that I should throw a doubt on anyone here;
but if so much as a word of gossip got to the ears of this man,
there would be an end of any chance of our getting him. I would
ask the lodge to choose a trusty committee, Mr. Chairman --
yourself, if I might suggest it, and Brother Baldwin here, and
five more. Then I can talk freely of what I know and of what I
advise should be done."
The proposition was at once adopted, and the committee
chosen. Besides the chairman and Baldwin there were the vulture-
faced secretary, Harraway, Tiger Cormac, the brutal young as-
sassin, Carter, the treasurer, and the brothers Willaby, fearless
and desperate men who would stick at nothing.
The usual revelry of the lodge was short and subdued: for
there was a cloud upon the men's spirits, and many there for the
first time began to see the cloud of avenging Law drifting up in
that serene sky under which they had dwelt so long. The horrors
they had dealt out to others had been so much a part of their
settled lives that the thought of retribution had become a remote
one, and so seemed the more startling now that it came so
closely upon them. They broke up early and left their leaders to
their council.
"Now, McMurdo!" said McGinty when they were alone. The
seven men sat frozen in their seats.
"I said just now that I knew Birdy Edwards," McMurdo
explained. "I need not tell you that he is not here under that
name. He's a brave man, but not a crazy one. He passes under
the name of Steve Wilson, and he is lodging at Hobson's Patch."
"How do you know this?"
"Because I fell into talk with him. I thought little of it at the
time, nor would have given it a second thought but for this letter;
but now I'm sure it's the man. I met him on the cars when I went
down the line on Wednesday -- a hard case if ever there was one.
He said he was a reporter. I believed it for the moment. Wanted
to know all he could about the Scowrers and what he called 'the
outrages' for a New York paper. Asked me every kind of
question so as to get something. You bet I was giving nothing
away. 'I'd pay for it and pay well,' said he, 'if I could get some
stuff that would suit my editor.' I said what I thought would
please him best, and he handed me a twenty-dollar bill for my
information. 'There's ten times that for you,' said he, 'if you can
find me all that I want.' "
"What did you tell him, then?"
"Any stuff I could make up."
"How do you know he wasn't a newspaper man?"
"I'll tell you. He got out at Hobson's Patch, and so did I. I
chanced into the telegraph bureau, and he was leaving it.
" 'See here,' said the operator after he'd gone out, 'I guess
we should charge double rates for this.' -- 'I guess you should,'
said I. He had filled the form with stuff that might have been
Chinese, for all we could make of it. 'He fires a sheet of this off
every day,' said the clerk. 'Yes,' said I; 'it's special news for his
paper, and he's scared that the others should tap it.' That was
what the operator thought and what I thought at the time; but I
think differently now."
"By Gar! I believe you are right," said McGinty. "But what
do you allow that we should do about it?"
"Why not go right down now and fix him?" someone suggested.
"Ay, the sooner the better."
"I'd start this next minute if I knew where we could find
him," said McMurdo. "He's in Hobson's Patch; but I don't
know the house. I've got a plan, though, if you'll only take my
advice."
"Well, what is it?"
"I'll go to the Patch to-morrow morning. I'll find him through
the operator. He can locate him, I guess. Well, then I'll tell him
that I'm a Freeman myself. I'll offer him all the secrets of the
lodge for a price. You bet he'll tumble to it. I'll tell him the
papers are at my house, and that it's as much as my life would
be worth to let him come while folk were about. He'll see that
that's horse sense. Let him come at ten o'clock at night, and he
shall see everything. That will fetch him sure."
"Well?"
"You can plan the rest for yourselves. Widow MacNamara's
is a lonely house. She's as true as steel and as deaf as a post.
There's only Scanlan and me in the house. If I get his promise --
and I'll let you know if I do -- I'd have the whole seven of you
come to me by nine o'clock. We'll get him in. If ever he gets out
alive -- well, he can talk of Birdy Edwards's luck for the rest of
his days!"
"There's going to be a vacancy at Pinkerton's or I'm mis-
taken. Leave it at that, McMurdo. At nine to-morrow we'll be
with you. You once get the door shut behind him, and you can
leave the rest with us."
Chapter 7
The Trapping of Birdy Edwards
Epilogue
The police trial had passed, in which the case of John Douglas
was referred to a higher court. So had the Quarter Sessions. at
which he was acquitted as having acted in self-defense.
"Get him out of England at any cost," wrote Holmes to the
wife. "There are forces here which may be more dangerous than
those he has escaped. There is no safety for your husband in
England."
Two months had gone by, and the case had to some extent
passed from our minds. Then one morning there came an enig-
matic note slipped into our letter box. "Dear me, Mr. Holmes.
Dear me!" said this singular epistle. There was neither super-
scription nor signature. I laughed at the quaint message; but
Holmes showed unwonted seriousness.
"Deviltry, Watson!" he remarked, and sat long with a clouded
brow.
Late last night Mrs. Hudson, our landlady, brought up a
message that a gentleman wished to see Holmes, and that the
matter was of the utmost importance. Close at the heels of his
messenger came Cecil Barker, our friend of the moated Manor
House. His face was drawn and haggard.
"I've had bad news -- terrible news, Mr. Holmes," said he.
"I feared as much," said Holmes.
"You have not had a cable, have you?"
"I have had a note from someone who has."
"It's poor Douglas. They tell me his name is Edwards; but he
will always be Jack Douglas of Benito Canon to me. I told you
that they started together for South Africa in the Palmyra three
weeks ago."
"Exactly. "
"The ship reached Cape Town last night. I received this cable
from Mrs. Douglas this morning:
Jack has been lost overboard in gale off St. Helena. No
one knows how accident occurred.
IVY DOUGLAS.