Chapter VIII: Part 8

I cannot be sure of the exact date, for some of my memoranda upon
the matter have been mislaid, but it must have been towards the
end of the first year during which Holmes and I shared chambers
in Baker Street. It was boisterous October weather, and we had
both remained indoors all day, I because I feared with my shaken
health to face the keen autumn wind, while he was deep in some of
those abstruse chemical investigations which absorbed him utterly
as long as he was engaged upon them. Towards evening, however,
the breaking of a test-tube brought his research to a premature
ending, and he sprang up from his chair with an exclamation of
impatience and a clouded brow.

“A day’s work ruined, Watson,” said he, striding across to the
window. “Ha! the stars are out and the wind has fallen. What do
you say to a ramble through London?”

I was weary of our little sitting-room and gladly acquiesced. For
three hours we strolled about together, watching the
ever-changing kaleidoscope of life as it ebbs and flows through
Fleet Street and the Strand. Holmes had shaken off his temporary
ill-humour, and his characteristic talk, with its keen observance
of detail and subtle power of inference held me amused and
enthralled. It was ten o’clock before we reached Baker Street
again. A brougham was waiting at our door.

“Hum! A doctor’s—general practitioner, I perceive,” said Holmes.
“Not been long in practice, but has had a good deal to do. Come
to consult us, I fancy! Lucky we came back!”

I was sufficiently conversant with Holmes’s methods to be able to
follow his reasoning, and to see that the nature and state of the
various medical instruments in the wicker basket which hung in
the lamplight inside the brougham had given him the data for his
swift deduction. The light in our window above showed that this
late visit was indeed intended for us. With some curiosity as to
what could have sent a brother medico to us at such an hour, I
followed Holmes into our sanctum.

A pale, taper-faced man with sandy whiskers rose up from a chair
by the fire as we entered. His age may not have been more than
three or four and thirty, but his haggard expression and
unhealthy hue told of a life which has sapped his strength and
robbed him of his youth. His manner was nervous and shy, like
that of a sensitive gentleman, and the thin white hand which he
laid on the mantelpiece as he rose was that of an artist rather
than of a surgeon. His dress was quiet and sombre—a black
frock-coat, dark trousers, and a touch of colour about his
necktie.

“Good-evening, doctor,” said Holmes, cheerily. “I am glad to see
that you have only been waiting a very few minutes.”

“You spoke to my coachman, then?”

“No, it was the candle on the side-table that told me. Pray
resume your seat and let me know how I can serve you.”

“My name is Doctor Percy Trevelyan,” said our visitor, “and I
live at 403, Brook Street.”

“Are you not the author of a monograph upon obscure nervous
lesions?” I asked.

His pale cheeks flushed with pleasure at hearing that his work
was known to me.

“I so seldom hear of the work that I thought it was quite dead,”
said he. “My publishers gave me a most discouraging account of
its sale. You are yourself, I presume, a medical man?”

“A retired Army surgeon.”

“My own hobby has always been nervous disease. I should wish to
make it an absolute specialty, but, of course, a man must take
what he can get at first. This, however, is beside the question,
Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and I quite appreciate how valuable your
time is. The fact is that a very singular train of events has
occurred recently at my house in Brook Street, and to-night they
came to such a head that I felt it was quite impossible for me to
wait another hour before asking for your advice and assistance.”

Sherlock Holmes sat down and lit his pipe. “You are very welcome
to both,” said he. “Pray let me have a detailed account of what
the circumstances are which have disturbed you.”

“One or two of them are so trivial,” said Dr. Trevelyan, “that
really I am almost ashamed to mention them. But the matter is so
inexplicable, and the recent turn which it has taken is so
elaborate, that I shall lay it all before you, and you shall
judge what is essential and what is not.

“I am compelled, to begin with, to say something of my own
college career. I am a London University man, you know, and I am
sure that you will not think that I am unduly singing my own
praises if I say that my student career was considered by my
professors to be a very promising one. After I had graduated I
continued to devote myself to research, occupying a minor
position in King’s College Hospital, and I was fortunate enough
to excite considerable interest by my research into the pathology
of catalepsy, and finally to win the Bruce Pinkerton prize and
medal by the monograph on nervous lesions to which your friend
has just alluded. I should not go too far if I were to say that
there was a general impression at that time that a distinguished
career lay before me.

“But the one great stumbling-block lay in my want of capital. As
you will readily understand, a specialist who aims high is
compelled to start in one of a dozen streets in the Cavendish
Square quarter, all of which entail enormous rents and furnishing
expenses. Besides this preliminary outlay, he must be prepared to
keep himself for some years, and to hire a presentable carriage
and horse. To do this was quite beyond my power, and I could only
hope that by economy I might in ten years’ time save enough to
enable me to put up my plate. Suddenly, however, an unexpected
incident opened up quite a new prospect to me.

“This was a visit from a gentleman of the name of Blessington,
who was a complete stranger to me. He came up to my room one
morning, and plunged into business in an instant.

“‘You are the same Percy Trevelyan who has had so distinguished a
career and won a great prize lately?’ said he.

“I bowed.

“‘Answer me frankly,’ he continued, ‘for you will find it to your
interest to do so. You have all the cleverness which makes a
successful man. Have you the tact?’

“I could not help smiling at the abruptness of the question.

“‘I trust that I have my share,’ I said.

“‘Any bad habits? Not drawn towards drink, eh?’

“‘Really, sir!’ I cried.

“‘Quite right! That’s all right! But I was bound to ask. With all
these qualities, why are you not in practice?’

“I shrugged my shoulders.

“‘Come, come!’ said he, in his bustling way. ‘It’s the old story.
More in your brains than in your pocket, eh? What would you say
if I were to start you in Brook Street?’

“I stared at him in astonishment.

“‘Oh, it’s for my sake, not for yours,’ he cried. ‘I’ll be
perfectly frank with you, and if it suits you it will suit me
very well. I have a few thousands to invest, d’ye see, and I
think I’ll sink them in you.’

“‘But why?’ I gasped.

“‘Well, it’s just like any other speculation, and safer than
most.’

“‘What am I to do, then?’

“‘I’ll tell you. I’ll take the house, furnish it, pay the maids,
and run the whole place. All you have to do is just to wear out
your chair in the consulting-room. I’ll let you have pocket-money
and everything. Then you hand over to me three quarters of what
you earn, and you keep the other quarter for yourself.’

“This was the strange proposal, Mr. Holmes, with which the man
Blessington approached me. I won’t weary you with the account of
how we bargained and negotiated. It ended in my moving into the
house next Lady Day, and starting in practice on very much the
same conditions as he had suggested. He came himself to live with
me in the character of a resident patient. His heart was weak, it
appears, and he needed constant medical supervision. He turned
the two best rooms of the first floor into a sitting-room and
bedroom for himself. He was a man of singular habits, shunning
company and very seldom going out. His life was irregular, but in
one respect he was regularity itself. Every evening, at the same
hour, he walked into the consulting-room, examined the books, put
down five and three-pence for every guinea that I had earned, and
carried the rest off to the strong-box in his own room.

“I may say with confidence that he never had occasion to regret
his speculation. From the first it was a success. A few good
cases and the reputation which I had won in the hospital brought
me rapidly to the front, and during the last few years I have
made him a rich man.

“So much, Mr. Holmes, for my past history and my relations with
Mr. Blessington. It only remains for me now to tell you what has
occurred to bring me here to-night.

“Some weeks ago Mr. Blessington came down to me in, as it seemed
to me, a state of considerable agitation. He spoke of some
burglary which, he said, had been committed in the West End, and
he appeared, I remember, to be quite unnecessarily excited about
it, declaring that a day should not pass before we should add
stronger bolts to our windows and doors. For a week he continued
to be in a peculiar state of restlessness, peering continually
out of the windows, and ceasing to take the short walk which had
usually been the prelude to his dinner. From his manner it struck
me that he was in mortal dread of something or somebody, but when
I questioned him upon the point he became so offensive that I was
compelled to drop the subject. Gradually, as time passed, his
fears appeared to die away, and he had renewed his former habits,
when a fresh event reduced him to the pitiable state of
prostration in which he now lies.

“What happened was this. Two days ago I received the letter which
I now read to you. Neither address nor date is attached to it.

“‘A Russian nobleman who is now resident in England,’ it runs,
‘would be glad to avail himself of the professional assistance of
Dr. Percy Trevelyan. He has been for some years a victim to
cataleptic attacks, on which, as is well known, Dr. Trevelyan is
an authority. He proposes to call at about quarter past six
to-morrow evening, if Dr. Trevelyan will make it convenient to be
at home.’

“This letter interested me deeply, because the chief difficulty
in the study of catalepsy is the rareness of the disease. You may
believe, then, that I was in my consulting-room when, at the
appointed hour, the page showed in the patient.

“He was an elderly man, thin, demure, and commonplace—by no means
the conception one forms of a Russian nobleman. I was much more
struck by the appearance of his companion. This was a tall young
man, surprisingly handsome, with a dark, fierce face, and the
limbs and chest of a Hercules. He had his hand under the other’s
arm as they entered, and helped him to a chair with a tenderness
which one would hardly have expected from his appearance.

“‘You will excuse my coming in, doctor,’ said he to me, speaking
English with a slight lisp. ‘This is my father, and his health is
a matter of the most overwhelming importance to me.’

“I was touched by this filial anxiety. ‘You would, perhaps, care
to remain during the consultation?’ said I.

“‘Not for the world,’ he cried with a gesture of horror. ‘It is
more painful to me than I can express. If I were to see my father
in one of these dreadful seizures I am convinced that I should
never survive it. My own nervous system is an exceptionally
sensitive one. With your permission, I will remain in the
waiting-room while you go into my father’s case.’

“To this, of course, I assented, and the young man withdrew. The
patient and I then plunged into a discussion of his case, of
which I took exhaustive notes. He was not remarkable for
intelligence, and his answers were frequently obscure, which I
attributed to his limited acquaintance with our language.
Suddenly, however, as I sat writing, he ceased to give any answer
at all to my inquiries, and on my turning towards him I was
shocked to see that he was sitting bolt upright in his chair,
staring at me with a perfectly blank and rigid face. He was again
in the grip of his mysterious malady.

“My first feeling, as I have just said, was one of pity and
horror. My second, I fear, was rather one of professional
satisfaction. I made notes of my patient’s pulse and temperature,
tested the rigidity of his muscles, and examined his reflexes.
There was nothing markedly abnormal in any of these conditions,
which harmonised with my former experiences. I had obtained good
results in such cases by the inhalation of nitrite of amyl, and
the present seemed an admirable opportunity of testing its
virtues. The bottle was downstairs in my laboratory, so leaving
my patient seated in his chair, I ran down to get it. There was
some little delay in finding it—five minutes, let us say—and then
I returned. Imagine my amazement to find the room empty and the
patient gone.

“Of course, my first act was to run into the waiting-room. The
son had gone also. The hall door had been closed, but not shut.
My page who admits patients is a new boy and by no means quick.
He waits downstairs, and runs up to show patients out when I ring
the consulting-room bell. He had heard nothing, and the affair
remained a complete mystery. Mr. Blessington came in from his
walk shortly afterwards, but I did not say anything to him upon
the subject, for, to tell the truth, I have got in the way of
late of holding as little communication with him as possible.

“Well, I never thought that I should see anything more of the
Russian and his son, so you can imagine my amazement when, at the
very same hour this evening, they both came marching into my
consulting-room, just as they had done before.

“‘I feel that I owe you a great many apologies for my abrupt
departure yesterday, doctor,’ said my patient.

“‘I confess that I was very much surprised at it,’ said I.

“‘Well, the fact is,’ he remarked, ‘that when I recover from
these attacks my mind is always very clouded as to all that has
gone before. I woke up in a strange room, as it seemed to me, and
made my way out into the street in a sort of dazed way when you
were absent.’

“‘And I,’ said the son, ‘seeing my father pass the door of the
waiting-room, naturally thought that the consultation had come to
an end. It was not until we had reached home that I began to
realize the true state of affairs.’

“‘Well,’ said I, laughing, ‘there is no harm done except that you
puzzled me terribly; so if you, sir, would kindly step into the
waiting-room I shall be happy to continue our consultation which
was brought to so abrupt an ending.’

“‘For half an hour or so I discussed that old gentleman’s
symptoms with him, and then, having prescribed for him, I saw him
go off upon the arm of his son.

“I have told you that Mr. Blessington generally chose this hour
of the day for his exercise. He came in shortly afterwards and
passed upstairs. An instant later I heard him running down, and
he burst into my consulting-room like a man who is mad with
panic.

“‘Who has been in my room?’ he cried.

“‘No one,’ said I.

“‘It’s a lie! He yelled. ‘Come up and look!’

“I passed over the grossness of his language, as he seemed half
out of his mind with fear. When I went upstairs with him he
pointed to several footprints upon the light carpet.

“‘D’you mean to say those are mine?’ he cried.

“They were certainly very much larger than any which he could
have made, and were evidently quite fresh. It rained hard this
afternoon, as you know, and my patients were the only people who
called. It must have been the case, then, that the man in the
waiting-room had, for some unknown reason, while I was busy with
the other, ascended to the room of my resident patient. Nothing
had been touched or taken, but there were the footprints to prove
that the intrusion was an undoubted fact.

“Mr. Blessington seemed more excited over the matter than I
should have thought possible, though of course it was enough to
disturb anybody’s peace of mind. He actually sat crying in an
armchair, and I could hardly get him to speak coherently. It was
his suggestion that I should come round to you, and of course I
at once saw the propriety of it, for certainly the incident is a
very singular one, though he appears to completely overrate its
importance. If you would only come back with me in my brougham,
you would at least be able to soothe him, though I can hardly
hope that you will be able to explain this remarkable
occurrence.”

Sherlock Holmes had listened to this long narrative with an
intentness which showed me that his interest was keenly aroused.
His face was as impassive as ever, but his lids had drooped more
heavily over his eyes, and his smoke had curled up more thickly
from his pipe to emphasize each curious episode in the doctor’s
tale. As our visitor concluded, Holmes sprang up without a word,
handed me my hat, picked his own from the table, and followed Dr.
Trevelyan to the door. Within a quarter of an hour we had been
dropped at the door of the physician’s residence in Brook Street,
one of those sombre, flat-faced houses which one associates with
a West-End practice. A small page admitted us, and we began at
once to ascend the broad, well-carpeted stair.

But a singular interruption brought us to a standstill. The light
at the top was suddenly whisked out, and from the darkness came a
reedy, quivering voice.

“I have a pistol,” it cried. “I give you my word that I’ll fire
if you come any nearer.”

“This really grows outrageous, Mr. Blessington,” cried Dr.
Trevelyan.

“Oh, then it is you, doctor,” said the voice, with a great heave
of relief. “But those other gentlemen, are they what they pretend
to be?”

We were conscious of a long scrutiny out of the darkness.

“Yes, yes, it’s all right,” said the voice at last. “You can come
up, and I am sorry if my precautions have annoyed you.”

He relit the stair gas as he spoke, and we saw before us a
singular-looking man, whose appearance, as well as his voice,
testified to his jangled nerves. He was very fat, but had
apparently at some time been much fatter, so that the skin hung
about his face in loose pouches, like the cheeks of a
blood-hound. He was of a sickly colour, and his thin, sandy hair
seemed to bristle up with the intensity of his emotion. In his
hand he held a pistol, but he thrust it into his pocket as we
advanced.

“Good-evening, Mr. Holmes,” said he. “I am sure I am very much
obliged to you for coming round. No one ever needed your advice
more than I do. I suppose that Dr. Trevelyan has told you of this
most unwarrantable intrusion into my rooms.”

“Quite so,” said Holmes. “Who are these two men Mr. Blessington,
and why do they wish to molest you?”

“Well, well,” said the resident patient, in a nervous fashion,
“of course it is hard to say that. You can hardly expect me to
answer that, Mr. Holmes.”

“Do you mean that you don’t know?”

“Come in here, if you please. Just have the kindness to step in
here.”

He led the way into his bedroom, which was large and comfortably
furnished.

“You see that,” said he, pointing to a big black box at the end
of his bed. “I have never been a very rich man, Mr. Holmes—never
made but one investment in my life, as Dr. Trevelyan would tell
you. But I don’t believe in bankers. I would never trust a
banker, Mr. Holmes. Between ourselves, what little I have is in
that box, so you can understand what it means to me when unknown
people force themselves into my rooms.”

Holmes looked at Blessington in his questioning way and shook his
head.

“I cannot possibly advise you if you try to deceive me,” said he.

“But I have told you everything.”

Holmes turned on his heel with a gesture of disgust. “Good-night,
Dr. Trevelyan,” said he.

“And no advice for me?” cried Blessington, in a breaking voice.

“My advice to you, sir, is to speak the truth.”

A minute later we were in the street and walking for home. We had
crossed Oxford Street and were half way down Harley Street before
I could get a word from my companion.

“Sorry to bring you out on such a fool’s errand, Watson,” he said
at last. “It is an interesting case, too, at the bottom of it.”

“I can make little of it,” I confessed.

“Well, it is quite evident that there are two men—more, perhaps,
but at least two—who are determined for some reason to get at
this fellow Blessington. I have no doubt in my mind that both on
the first and on the second occasion that young man penetrated to
Blessington’s room, while his confederate, by an ingenious
device, kept the doctor from interfering.”

“And the catalepsy?”

“A fraudulent imitation, Watson, though I should hardly dare to
hint as much to our specialist. It is a very easy complaint to
imitate. I have done it myself.”

“And then?”

“By the purest chance Blessington was out on each occasion. Their
reason for choosing so unusual an hour for a consultation was
obviously to insure that there should be no other patient in the
waiting-room. It just happened, however, that this hour coincided
with Blessington’s constitutional, which seems to show that they
were not very well acquainted with his daily routine. Of course,
if they had been merely after plunder they would at least have
made some attempt to search for it. Besides, I can read in a
man’s eye when it is his own skin that he is frightened for. It
is inconceivable that this fellow could have made two such
vindictive enemies as these appear to be without knowing of it. I
hold it, therefore, to be certain that he does know who these men
are, and that for reasons of his own he suppresses it. It is just
possible that to-morrow may find him in a more communicative
mood.”

“Is there not one alternative,” I suggested, “grotesquely
improbable, no doubt, but still just conceivable? Might the whole
story of the cataleptic Russian and his son be a concoction of
Dr. Trevelyan’s, who has, for his own purposes, been in
Blessington’s rooms?”

I saw in the gaslight that Holmes wore an amused smile at this
brilliant departure of mine.

“My dear fellow,” said he, “it was one of the first solutions
which occurred to me, but I was soon able to corroborate the
doctor’s tale. This young man has left prints upon the
stair-carpet which made it quite superfluous for me to ask to see
those which he had made in the room. When I tell you that his
shoes were square-toed instead of being pointed like
Blessington’s, and were quite an inch and a third longer than the
doctor’s, you will acknowledge that there can be no doubt as to
his individuality. But we may sleep on it now, for I shall be
surprised if we do not hear something further from Brook Street
in the morning.”

Sherlock Holmes’s prophecy was soon fulfilled, and in a dramatic
fashion. At half-past seven next morning, in the first glimmer of
daylight, I found him standing by my bedside in his
dressing-gown.

“There’s a brougham waiting for us, Watson,” said he.

“What’s the matter, then?”

“The Brook Street business.”

“Any fresh news?”

“Tragic, but ambiguous,” said he, pulling up the blind. “Look at
this—a sheet from a note-book, with ‘For God’s sake come at
once—P.T.,’ scrawled upon it in pencil. Our friend, the doctor,
was hard put to it when he wrote this. Come along, my dear
fellow, for it’s an urgent call.”

In a quarter of an hour or so we were back at the physician’s
house. He came running out to meet us with a face of horror.

“Oh, such a business!” he cried, with his hands to his temples.

“What then?”

“Blessington has committed suicide!”

Holmes whistled.

“Yes, he hanged himself during the night.”

We had entered, and the doctor had preceded us into what was
evidently his waiting-room.

“I really hardly know what I am doing,” he cried. “The police are
already upstairs. It has shaken me most dreadfully.”

“When did you find it out?”

“He has a cup of tea taken in to him early every morning. When
the maid entered, about seven, there the unfortunate fellow was
hanging in the middle of the room. He had tied his cord to the
hook on which the heavy lamp used to hang, and he had jumped off
from the top of the very box that he showed us yesterday.”

Holmes stood for a moment in deep thought.

“With your permission,” said he at last, “I should like to go
upstairs and look into the matter.”

We both ascended, followed by the doctor.

It was a dreadful sight which met us as we entered the bedroom
door. I have spoken of the impression of flabbiness which this
man Blessington conveyed. As he dangled from the hook it was
exaggerated and intensified until he was scarce human in his
appearance. The neck was drawn out like a plucked chicken’s,
making the rest of him seem the more obese and unnatural by the
contrast. He was clad only in his long night-dress, and his
swollen ankles and ungainly feet protruded starkly from beneath
it. Beside him stood a smart-looking police-inspector, who was
taking notes in a pocket-book.

“Ah, Mr. Holmes,” said he, heartily, as my friend entered, “I am
delighted to see you.”

“Good-morning, Lanner,” answered Holmes; “you won’t think me an
intruder, I am sure. Have you heard of the events which led up to
this affair?”

“Yes, I heard something of them.”

“Have you formed any opinion?”

“As far as I can see, the man has been driven out of his senses
by fright. The bed has been well slept in, you see. There’s his
impression deep enough. It’s about five in the morning, you know,
that suicides are most common. That would be about his time for
hanging himself. It seems to have been a very deliberate affair.”

“I should say that he has been dead about three hours, judging by
the rigidity of the muscles,” said I.

“Noticed anything peculiar about the room?” asked Holmes.

“Found a screw-driver and some screws on the wash-hand stand.
Seems to have smoked heavily during the night, too. Here are four
cigar-ends that I picked out of the fireplace.”

“Hum!” said Holmes, “have you got his cigar-holder?”

“No, I have seen none.”

“His cigar-case, then?”

“Yes, it was in his coat-pocket.”

Holmes opened it and smelled the single cigar which it contained.

“Oh, this is a Havana, and these others are cigars of the
peculiar sort which are imported by the Dutch from their East
Indian colonies. They are usually wrapped in straw, you know, and
are thinner for their length than any other brand.” He picked up
the four ends and examined them with his pocket-lens.

“Two of these have been smoked from a holder and two without,”
said he. “Two have been cut by a not very sharp knife, and two
have had the ends bitten off by a set of excellent teeth. This is
no suicide, Mr. Lanner. It is a very deeply planned and
cold-blooded murder.”

“Impossible!” cried the inspector.

“And why?”

“Why should any one murder a man in so clumsy a fashion as by
hanging him?”

“That is what we have to find out.”

“How could they get in?”

“Through the front door.”

“It was barred in the morning.”

“Then it was barred after them.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw their traces. Excuse me a moment, and I may be able to
give you some further information about it.”

He went over to the door, and turning the lock he examined it in
his methodical way. Then he took out the key, which was on the
inside, and inspected that also. The bed, the carpet, the chairs,
the mantelpiece, the dead body, and the rope were each in turn
examined, until at last he professed himself satisfied, and with
my aid and that of the inspector cut down the wretched object and
laid it reverently under a sheet.

“How about this rope?” he asked.

“It is cut off this,” said Dr. Trevelyan, drawing a large coil
from under the bed. “He was morbidly nervous of fire, and always
kept this beside him, so that he might escape by the window in
case the stairs were burning.”

“That must have saved them trouble,” said Holmes, thoughtfully.
“Yes, the actual facts are very plain, and I shall be surprised
if by the afternoon I cannot give you the reasons for them as
well. I will take this photograph of Blessington, which I see
upon the mantelpiece, as it may help me in my inquiries.”

“But you have told us nothing!” cried the doctor.

“Oh, there can be no doubt as to the sequence of events,” said
Holmes. “There were three of them in it: the young man, the old
man, and a third, to whose identity I have no clue. The first
two, I need hardly remark, are the same who masqueraded as the
Russian count and his son, so we can give a very full description
of them. They were admitted by a confederate inside the house. If
I might offer you a word of advice, Inspector, it would be to
arrest the page, who, as I understand, has only recently come
into your service, Doctor.”

“The young imp cannot be found,” said Dr. Trevelyan; “the maid
and the cook have just been searching for him.”

Holmes shrugged his shoulders.

“He has played a not unimportant part in this drama,” said he.
“The three men having ascended the stairs, which they did on
tiptoe, the elder man first, the younger man second, and the
unknown man in the rear—”

“My dear Holmes!” I ejaculated.

“Oh, there could be no question as to the superimposing of the
footmarks. I had the advantage of learning which was which last
night. They ascended, then, to Mr. Blessington’s room, the door
of which they found to be locked. With the help of a wire,
however, they forced round the key. Even without the lens you
will perceive, by the scratches on this ward, where the pressure
was applied.

“On entering the room their first proceeding must have been to
gag Mr. Blessington. He may have been asleep, or he may have been
so paralyzed with terror as to have been unable to cry out. These
walls are thick, and it is conceivable that his shriek, if he had
time to utter one, was unheard.

“Having secured him, it is evident to me that a consultation of
some sort was held. Probably it was something in the nature of a
judicial proceeding. It must have lasted for some time, for it
was then that these cigars were smoked. The older man sat in that
wicker chair; it was he who used the cigar-holder. The younger
man sat over yonder; he knocked his ash off against the chest of
drawers. The third fellow paced up and down. Blessington, I
think, sat upright in the bed, but of that I cannot be absolutely
certain.

“Well, it ended by their taking Blessington and hanging him. The
matter was so prearranged that it is my belief that they brought
with them some sort of block or pulley which might serve as a
gallows. That screw-driver and those screws were, as I conceive,
for fixing it up. Seeing the hook, however they naturally saved
themselves the trouble. Having finished their work they made off,
and the door was barred behind them by their confederate.”

We had all listened with the deepest interest to this sketch of
the night’s doings, which Holmes had deduced from signs so subtle
and minute that, even when he had pointed them out to us, we
could scarcely follow him in his reasoning. The inspector hurried
away on the instant to make inquiries about the page, while
Holmes and I returned to Baker Street for breakfast.

“I’ll be back by three,” said he, when we had finished our meal.
“Both the inspector and the doctor will meet me here at that
hour, and I hope by that time to have cleared up any little
obscurity which the case may still present.”

Our visitors arrived at the appointed time, but it was a quarter
to four before my friend put in an appearance. From his
expression as he entered, however, I could see that all had gone
well with him.

“Any news, Inspector?”

“We have got the boy, sir.”

“Excellent, and I have got the men.”

“You have got them!” we cried, all three.

“Well, at least I have got their identity. This so-called
Blessington is, as I expected, well known at headquarters, and so
are his assailants. Their names are Biddle, Hayward, and Moffat.”

“The Worthingdon bank gang,” cried the inspector.

“Precisely,” said Holmes.

“Then Blessington must have been Sutton.”

“Exactly,” said Holmes.

“Why, that makes it as clear as crystal,” said the inspector.

But Trevelyan and I looked at each other in bewilderment.

“You must surely remember the great Worthingdon bank business,”
said Holmes. “Five men were in it—these four and a fifth called
Cartwright. Tobin, the caretaker, was murdered, and the thieves
got away with seven thousand pounds. This was in 1875. They were
all five arrested, but the evidence against them was by no means
conclusive. This Blessington or Sutton, who was the worst of the
gang, turned informer. On his evidence Cartwright was hanged and
the other three got fifteen years apiece. When they got out the
other day, which was some years before their full term, they set
themselves, as you perceive, to hunt down the traitor and to
avenge the death of their comrade upon him. Twice they tried to
get at him and failed; a third time, you see, it came off. Is
there anything further which I can explain, Dr. Trevelyan?”

“I think you have made it all remarkably clear,” said the doctor.
“No doubt the day on which he was perturbed was the day when he
had seen of their release in the newspapers.”

“Quite so. His talk about a burglary was the merest blind.”

“But why could he not tell you this?”

“Well, my dear sir, knowing the vindictive character of his old
associates, he was trying to hide his own identity from everybody
as long as he could. His secret was a shameful one, and he could
not bring himself to divulge it. However, wretch as he was, he
was still living under the shield of British law, and I have no
doubt, Inspector, that you will see that, though that shield may
fail to guard, the sword of justice is still there to avenge.”

Such were the singular circumstances in connection with the
Resident Patient and the Brook Street Doctor. From that night
nothing has been seen of the three murderers by the police, and
it is surmised at Scotland Yard that they were among the
passengers of the ill-fated steamer _Norah Creina_, which was
lost some years ago with all hands upon the Portuguese coast,
some leagues to the north of Oporto. The proceedings against the
page broke down for want of evidence, and the Brook Street
Mystery, as it was called, has never until now been fully dealt
with in any public print.

X. The Greek Interpreter

During my long and intimate acquaintance with Mr. Sherlock Holmes
I had never heard him refer to his relations, and hardly ever to
his own early life. This reticence upon his part had increased
the somewhat inhuman effect which he produced upon me, until
sometimes I found myself regarding him as an isolated phenomenon,
a brain without a heart, as deficient in human sympathy as he was
pre-eminent in intelligence. His aversion to women and his
disinclination to form new friendships were both typical of his
unemotional character, but not more so than his complete
suppression of every reference to his own people. I had come to
believe that he was an orphan with no relatives living, but one
day, to my very great surprise, he began to talk to me about his
brother.

It was after tea on a summer evening, and the conversation, which
had roamed in a desultory, spasmodic fashion from golf clubs to
the causes of the change in the obliquity of the ecliptic, came
round at last to the question of atavism and hereditary
aptitudes. The point under discussion was, how far any singular
gift in an individual was due to his ancestry and how far to his
own early training.

“In your own case,” said I, “from all that you have told me, it
seems obvious that your faculty of observation and your peculiar
facility for deduction are due to your own systematic training.”

“To some extent,” he answered, thoughtfully. “My ancestors were
country squires, who appear to have led much the same life as is
natural to their class. But, none the less, my turn that way is
in my veins, and may have come with my grandmother, who was the
sister of Vernet, the French artist. Art in the blood is liable
to take the strangest forms.”

“But how do you know that it is hereditary?”

“Because my brother Mycroft possesses it in a larger degree than
I do.”

This was news to me indeed. If there were another man with such
singular powers in England, how was it that neither police nor
public had heard of him? I put the question, with a hint that it
was my companion’s modesty which made him acknowledge his brother
as his superior. Holmes laughed at my suggestion.

“My dear Watson,” said he, “I cannot agree with those who rank
modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be
seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one’s self is as
much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one’s own powers.
When I say, therefore, that Mycroft has better powers of
observation than I, you may take it that I am speaking the exact
and literal truth.”

“Is he your junior?”

“Seven years my senior.”

“How comes it that he is unknown?”

“Oh, he is very well known in his own circle.”

“Where, then?”

“Well, in the Diogenes Club, for example.”

I had never heard of the institution, and my face must have
proclaimed as much, for Sherlock Holmes pulled out his watch.

“The Diogenes Club is the queerest club in London, and Mycroft
one of the queerest men. He’s always there from quarter to five
to twenty to eight. It’s six now, so if you care for a stroll
this beautiful evening I shall be very happy to introduce you to
two curiosities.”

Five minutes later we were in the street, walking towards
Regent’s Circus.

“You wonder,” said my companion, “why it is that Mycroft does not
use his powers for detective work. He is incapable of it.”

“But I thought you said—”

“I said that he was my superior in observation and deduction. If
the art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from an
armchair, my brother would be the greatest criminal agent that
ever lived. But he has no ambition and no energy. He will not
even go out of his way to verify his own solutions, and would
rather be considered wrong than take the trouble to prove himself
right. Again and again I have taken a problem to him, and have
received an explanation which has afterwards proved to be the
correct one. And yet he was absolutely incapable of working out
the practical points which must be gone into before a case could
be laid before a judge or jury.”

“It is not his profession, then?”

“By no means. What is to me a means of livelihood is to him the
merest hobby of a dilettante. He has an extraordinary faculty for
figures, and audits the books in some of the government
departments. Mycroft lodges in Pall Mall, and he walks round the
corner into Whitehall every morning and back every evening. From
year’s end to year’s end he takes no other exercise, and is seen
nowhere else, except only in the Diogenes Club, which is just
opposite his rooms.”

“I cannot recall the name.”

“Very likely not. There are many men in London, you know, who,
some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the
company of their fellows. Yet they are not averse to comfortable
chairs and the latest periodicals. It is for the convenience of
these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the
most unsociable and unclubable men in town. No member is
permitted to take the least notice of any other one. Save in the
Stranger’s Room, no talking is, under any circumstances, allowed,
and three offences, if brought to the notice of the committee,
render the talker liable to expulsion. My brother was one of the
founders, and I have myself found it a very soothing atmosphere.”

We had reached Pall Mall as we talked, and were walking down it
from the St. James’s end. Sherlock Holmes stopped at a door some
little distance from the Carlton, and, cautioning me not to
speak, he led the way into the hall. Through the glass paneling I
caught a glimpse of a large and luxurious room, in which a
considerable number of men were sitting about and reading papers,
each in his own little nook. Holmes showed me into a small
chamber which looked out into Pall Mall, and then, leaving me for
a minute, he came back with a companion whom I knew could only be
his brother.

Mycroft Holmes was a much larger and stouter man than Sherlock.
His body was absolutely corpulent, but his face, though massive,
had preserved something of the sharpness of expression which was
so remarkable in that of his brother. His eyes, which were of a
peculiarly light, watery grey, seemed to always retain that
far-away, introspective look which I had only observed in
Sherlock’s when he was exerting his full powers.

“I am glad to meet you, sir,” said he, putting out a broad, fat
hand like the flipper of a seal. “I hear of Sherlock everywhere
since you became his chronicler. By the way, Sherlock, I expected
to see you round last week, to consult me over that Manor House
case. I thought you might be a little out of your depth.”

“No, I solved it,” said my friend, smiling.

“It was Adams, of course.”

“Yes, it was Adams.”

“I was sure of it from the first.” The two sat down together in
the bow-window of the club. “To any one who wishes to study
mankind this is the spot,” said Mycroft. “Look at the magnificent
types! Look at these two men who are coming towards us, for
example.”

“The billiard-marker and the other?”

“Precisely. What do you make of the other?”

The two men had stopped opposite the window. Some chalk marks
over the waistcoat pocket were the only signs of billiards which
I could see in one of them. The other was a very small, dark
fellow, with his hat pushed back and several packages under his
arm.

“An old soldier, I perceive,” said Sherlock.

“And very recently discharged,” remarked the brother.

“Served in India, I see.”

“And a non-commissioned officer.”

“Royal Artillery, I fancy,” said Sherlock.

“And a widower.”

“But with a child.”

“Children, my dear boy, children.”

“Come,” said I, laughing, “this is a little too much.”

“Surely,” answered Holmes, “it is not hard to say that a man with
that bearing, expression of authority, and sunbaked skin, is a
soldier, is more than a private, and is not long from India.”

“That he has not left the service long is shown by his still
wearing his ammunition boots, as they are called,” observed
Mycroft.

“He had not the cavalry stride, yet he wore his hat on one side,
as is shown by the lighter skin of that side of his brow. His
weight is against his being a sapper. He is in the artillery.”

“Then, of course, his complete mourning shows that he has lost
some one very dear. The fact that he is doing his own shopping
looks as though it were his wife. He has been buying things for
children, you perceive. There is a rattle, which shows that one
of them is very young. The wife probably died in childbed. The
fact that he has a picture-book under his arm shows that there is
another child to be thought of.”

I began to understand what my friend meant when he said that his
brother possessed even keener faculties that he did himself. He
glanced across at me and smiled. Mycroft took snuff from a
tortoise-shell box, and brushed away the wandering grains from
his coat front with a large, red silk handkerchief.

“By the way, Sherlock,” said he, “I have had something quite
after your own heart—a most singular problem—submitted to my
judgment. I really had not the energy to follow it up save in a
very incomplete fashion, but it gave me a basis for some pleasing
speculation. If you would care to hear the facts—”

“My dear Mycroft, I should be delighted.”

The brother scribbled a note upon a leaf of his pocket-book, and,
ringing the bell, he handed it to the waiter.

“I have asked Mr. Melas to step across,” said he. “He lodges on
the floor above me, and I have some slight acquaintance with him,
which led him to come to me in his perplexity. Mr. Melas is a
Greek by extraction, as I understand, and he is a remarkable
linguist. He earns his living partly as interpreter in the law
courts and partly by acting as guide to any wealthy Orientals who
may visit the Northumberland Avenue hotels. I think I will leave
him to tell his very remarkable experience in his own fashion.”

A few minutes later we were joined by a short, stout man whose
olive face and coal-black hair proclaimed his Southern origin,
though his speech was that of an educated Englishman. He shook
hands eagerly with Sherlock Holmes, and his dark eyes sparkled
with pleasure when he understood that the specialist was anxious
to hear his story.

“I do not believe that the police credit me—on my word, I do
not,” said he in a wailing voice. “Just because they have never
heard of it before, they think that such a thing cannot be. But I
know that I shall never be easy in my mind until I know what has
become of my poor man with the sticking-plaster upon his face.”

“I am all attention,” said Sherlock Holmes.

“This is Wednesday evening,” said Mr. Melas. “Well then, it was
Monday night—only two days ago, you understand—that all this
happened. I am an interpreter, as perhaps my neighbour there has
told you. I interpret all languages—or nearly all—but as I am a
Greek by birth and with a Grecian name, it is with that
particular tongue that I am principally associated. For many
years I have been the chief Greek interpreter in London, and my
name is very well known in the hotels.

“It happens not unfrequently that I am sent for at strange hours
by foreigners who get into difficulties, or by travelers who
arrive late and wish my services. I was not surprised, therefore,
on Monday night when a Mr. Latimer, a very fashionably dressed
young man, came up to my rooms and asked me to accompany him in a
cab which was waiting at the door. A Greek friend had come to see
him upon business, he said, and as he could speak nothing but his
own tongue, the services of an interpreter were indispensable. He
gave me to understand that his house was some little distance
off, in Kensington, and he seemed to be in a great hurry,
bustling me rapidly into the cab when we had descended to the
street.

“I say into the cab, but I soon became doubtful as to whether it
was not a carriage in which I found myself. It was certainly more
roomy than the ordinary four-wheeled disgrace to London, and the
fittings, though frayed, were of rich quality. Mr. Latimer seated
himself opposite to me and we started off through Charing Cross
and up the Shaftesbury Avenue. We had come out upon Oxford Street
and I had ventured some remark as to this being a roundabout way
to Kensington, when my words were arrested by the extraordinary
conduct of my companion.

“He began by drawing a most formidable-looking bludgeon loaded
with lead from his pocket, and switching it backward and forward
several times, as if to test its weight and strength. Then he
placed it without a word upon the seat beside him. Having done
this, he drew up the windows on each side, and I found to my
astonishment that they were covered with paper so as to prevent
my seeing through them.

“‘I am sorry to cut off your view, Mr. Melas,’ said he. ‘The fact
is that I have no intention that you should see what the place is
to which we are driving. It might possibly be inconvenient to me
if you could find your way there again.’

“As you can imagine, I was utterly taken aback by such an
address. My companion was a powerful, broad-shouldered young
fellow, and, apart from the weapon, I should not have had the
slightest chance in a struggle with him.

“‘This is very extraordinary conduct, Mr. Latimer,’ I stammered.
‘You must be aware that what you are doing is quite illegal.’

“‘It is somewhat of a liberty, no doubt,’ said he, ‘but we’ll
make it up to you. I must warn you, however, Mr. Melas, that if
at any time to-night you attempt to raise an alarm or do anything
which is against my interests, you will find it a very serious
thing. I beg you to remember that no one knows where you are, and
that, whether you are in this carriage or in my house, you are
equally in my power.’

“His words were quiet, but he had a rasping way of saying them
which was very menacing. I sat in silence wondering what on earth
could be his reason for kidnapping me in this extraordinary
fashion. Whatever it might be, it was perfectly clear that there
was no possible use in my resisting, and that I could only wait
to see what might befall.

“For nearly two hours we drove without my having the least clue
as to where we were going. Sometimes the rattle of the stones
told of a paved causeway, and at others our smooth, silent course
suggested asphalt; but, save by this variation in sound, there
was nothing at all which could in the remotest way help me to
form a guess as to where we were. The paper over each window was
impenetrable to light, and a blue curtain was drawn across the
glass work in front. It was a quarter-past seven when we left
Pall Mall, and my watch showed me that it was ten minutes to nine
when we at last came to a standstill. My companion let down the
window, and I caught a glimpse of a low, arched doorway with a
lamp burning above it. As I was hurried from the carriage it
swung open, and I found myself inside the house, with a vague
impression of a lawn and trees on each side of me as I entered.
Whether these were private grounds, however, or _bonâ-fide_
country was more than I could possibly venture to say.

“There was a coloured gas-lamp inside which was turned so low
that I could see little save that the hall was of some size and
hung with pictures. In the dim light I could make out that the
person who had opened the door was a small, mean-looking,
middle-aged man with rounded shoulders. As he turned towards us
the glint of the light showed me that he was wearing glasses.