The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (66 page)

‘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 paralysed 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 pre-arranged that it is my belief that they brought with them some sort of block or pulley which might serve as a gallows. That screwdriver 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 reasonings. 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 so perturbed was the day when he read 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
,
¹⁸
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.

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 some times 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,
¹
came round at last to the question of atavism
²
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.
³
Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms.'

‘But how do you know that it is hereditary?'

‘Because my brother Mycroft
⁴
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 oneself 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,
⁵
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 a quarter to five till 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 Circus.
⁶

‘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 would 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,
⁷
and he walks round the corner into Whitehall
⁸
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 unclubbable men in town. No member is permitted to take the least notice of any other one. Save in the Strangers' Room, no talking is, under any circumstances, permitted,
⁹
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.
¹⁰
Sherlock Holmes stopped at a door some little distance from the Carlton,
¹¹
and, cautioning me not to speak, he led the way into the hall. Through the glass panelling 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 on to Pall Mall, and then, leaving me for a minute, he came back with a companion who 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, flat 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 anyone 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.'
¹²

‘Surely,' answered Holmes, ‘it is not hard to say that a man with
that bearing, expression of authority, and sun-baked 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 has not the cavalry stride, yet he wore his hat on one side, as is shown by the lighter skin on 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 someone 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 child-bed. The fact that he has a picture-book under his arm shows that there is another child to be thought of.'