THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES

                         ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES


                         THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED LIP

ISA WHITNEY, brother of the late Elias Whitney, D. D., Principal of the
Theological College of St. George's, was much addicted to opium.  The habit
grew upon him, as I understand, from some foolish freak when he was at
college; for having read De Quincey's description of his dreams and
sensations, he had drenched his tobacco with laudanum in an attempt to produce
the same effects.  He found, as so many more have done, that the practice is
easier to attain than to get rid of, and for many years he continued to be a
slave to the drug, an object of mingled horror and pity to his friends and
relatives.  I can see him now, with yellow, pasty face, drooping lids, and
pin-point pupils, all huddled in a chair, the wreck and ruin of a noble man.
     One night--it was in June, '89--there came a ring to my bell, about the
hour when a man gives his first yawn and glances at the clock.  I sat up in my
chair, and my wife laid her needle-work down in her lap and made a little face
of disappointment.
     "A patient!" said she.  "You'll have to go out."
     I groaned, for I was newly come back from a weary day.
     We heard the door open, a few hurried words, and then quick steps upon
the linoleum.  Our own door flew open, and a lady, clad in some dark-coloured
stuff, with a black veil, entered the room.
     "You will excuse my calling so late," she began, and then, suddenly
losing her self-control, she ran forward, threw her arms about my wife's neck,
and sobbed upon her shoulder.  "Oh, I'm in such trouble!" she cried; "I do so
want a little help."
     "Why," said my wife, pulling up her veil, "it is Kate Whitney.  How you
startled me, Kate!  I had not an idea who you were when you came in."
     "I didn't know what to do, so I came straight to you."  That was always
the way.  Folk who were in grief came to my wife like birds to a light-house.
     "It was very sweet of you to come.  Now, you must have some wine and
water, and sit here comfortably and tell us all about it.  Or should you
rather that I sent James off to bed?"
     "Oh, no, no!  I want the doctor's advice and help, too.  It's about Isa.
He has not been home for two days.  I am so frightened about him!"
     It was not the first time that she had spoken to us of her husband's
trouble, to me as a doctor, to my wife as an old friend and school companion.
We soothed and comforted her by such words as we could find.  Did she know
where her husband was?  Was it possible that we could bring him back to her?
     It seems that it was.  She had the surest information that of late he
had, when the fit was on him, made use of an opium den in the farthest east of
the City.  Hitherto his orgies had always been confined to one day, and he had
come back, twitching and shattered, in the evening.  But now the spell had
been upon him eight-and-forty hours, and he lay there, doubtless among the
dregs of the docks, breathing in the poison or sleeping off the effects.
There he was to be found, she was sure of it, at the Bar of Gold, in Upper
Swandam Lane.  But what was she to do?  How could she, a young and timid
woman, make her way into such a place and pluck her husband out from among the
ruffians who surrounded him?
     There was the case, and of course there was but one way out of it.  Might
I not escort her to this place?  And then, as a second thought, why should she
come at all?  I was Isa Whitney's medical adviser, and as such I had influence
over him.  I could manage it better if I were alone.  I promised her on my
word that I would send him home in a cab within two hours if he were indeed at
the address which she had given me.  And so in ten minutes I had left my
armchair and cheery sitting-room behind me, and was speeding eastward in a
hansom on a strange errand, as it seemed to me at the time, though the future
only could show how strange it was to be.
     But there was no great difficulty in the first stage of my adventure.
Upper Swandam Lane is a vile alley lurking behind the high wharves which line
the north side of the river to the east of London Bridge.  Between a slop-shop
and a gin-shop, approached by a steep flight of steps leading down to a black
gap like the mouth of a cave, I found the den of which I was in search.
Ordering my cab to wait, I passed down the steps, worn hollow in the centre by
the ceaseless tread of drunken feet; and by the light of a flickering oil-lamp
above the door I found the latch and made my way into a long, low room, thick
and heavy with the brown opium smoke, and terraced with wooden berths, like
the forecastle of an emigrant ship.
     Through the gloom one could dimly catch a glimpse of bodies lying in
strange fantastic poses, bowed shoulders, bent knees, heads thrown back, and
chins pointing upward, with here and there a dark, lack-lustre eye turned upon
the newcomer.  Out of the black shadows there glimmered little red circles of
light, now bright, now faint, as the burning poison waxed or waned in the
bowls of the metal pipes.  The most lay silent, but some muttered to
themselves, and others talked together in a strange, low, monotonous voice,
their conversation coming in gushes, and then suddenly tailing off into
silence, each mumbling out his own thoughts and paying little heed to the
words of his neighbour.  At the farther end was a small brazier of burning
charcoal, beside which on a three-legged wooden stool there sat a tall, thin
old man, with his jaw resting upon his two fists, and his elbows upon his
knees, staring into the fire.
     As I entered, a sallow Malay attendant had hurried up with a pipe for me
and a supply of the drug, beckoning me to an empty berth.
     "Thank you.  I have not come to stay," said I.  "There is a friend of
mine here, Mr. Isa Whitney, and I wish to speak with him."
     There was a movement and an exclamation from my right, and peering
through the gloom I saw Whitney, pale, haggard, and unkempt, staring out at
me.
     "My God!  It's Watson," said he.  He was in a pitiable state of reaction,
with every nerve in a twitter.  "I say, Watson, what o'clock is it?"
     "Nearly eleven."
     "Of what day?"
     "Of Friday, June 19th."
     "Good heavens!  I thought it was Wednesday.  It is Wednesday.  What d'you
want to frighten the chap for?"  He sank his face onto his arms and began to
sob in a high treble key.
     "I tell you that it is Friday, man.  Your wife has been waiting this two
days for you.  You should be ashamed of yourself!"
     "So I am.  But you've got mixed, Watson, for I have only been here a few
hours, three pipes, four pipes--I forget how many.  But I'll go home with you.
I wouldn't frighten Kate--poor little Kate.  Give me your hand!  Have you a
cab?"
     "Yes, I have one waiting."
     "Then I shall go in it.  But I must owe something.  Find what I owe,
Watson.  I am all off colour.  I can do nothing for myself."
     I walked down the narrow passage between the double row of sleepers,
holding my breath to keep out the vile, stupefying fumes of the drug, and
looking about for the manager.  As I passed the tall man who sat by the
brazier I felt a sudden pluck at my skirt, and a low voice whispered, "Walk
past me, and then look back at me."  The words fell quite distinctly upon my
ear.  I glanced down.  They could only have come from the old man at my side,
and yet he sat now as absorbed as ever, very thin, very wrinkled, bent with
age, an opium pipe dangling down from between his knees, as though it had
dropped in sheer lassitude from his fingers.  I took two steps forward and
looked back.  It took all my self-control to prevent me from breaking out into
a cry of astonishment.  He had turned his back so that none could see him but
I.  His form had filled out, his wrinkles were gone, the dull eyes had
regained their fire, and there, sitting by the fire and grinning at my
surprise, was none other than Sherlock Holmes.  He made a slight motion to me
to approach him, and instantly, as he turned his face half round to the
company once more, subsided into a doddering, loose-lipped senility.
     "Holmes!" I whispered, "what on earth are you doing in this den?"
     "As low as you can," he answered; "I have excellent ears.  If you would
have the great kindness to get rid of that sottish friend of yours I should be
exceedingly glad to have a little talk with you."
     "I have a cab outside."
     "Then pray send him home in it.  You may safely trust him, for he appears
to be too limp to get into any mischief.  I should recommend you also to send
a note by the cabman to your wife to say that you have thrown in your lot with
me.  If you will wait outside, I shall be with you in five minutes."
     It was difficult to refuse any of Sherlock Holmes's requests, for they
were always so exceedingly definite, and put forward with such a quiet air of
mastery.  I felt, however, that when Whitney was once confined in the cab my
mission was practically accomplished; and for the rest, I could not wish
anything better than to be associated with my friend in one of those singular
adventures which were the normal condition of his existence.  In a few minutes
I had written my note, paid Whitney's bill, led him out to the cab, and seen
him driven through the darkness.  In a very short time a decrepit figure had
emerged from the opium den, and I was walking down the street with Sherlock
Holmes.  For two streets he shuffled along with a bent back and an uncertain
foot.  Then, glancing quickly round, he straightened himself out and burst
into a hearty fit of laughter.
     "I suppose, Watson," said he, "that you imagine that I have added
opium-smoking to cocaine injections, and all the other little weaknesses on
which you have favoured me with your medical views."
     "I was certainly surprised to find you there."
     "But not more so than I to find you."
     "I came to find a friend."
     "And I to find an enemy."
     "An enemy?"
     "Yes; one of my natural enemies, or, shall I say, my natural prey.
Briefly, Watson, I am in the midst of a very remarkable inquiry, and I have
hoped to find a clue in the incoherent ramblings of these sots, as I have done
before now.  Had I been recognized in that den my life would not have been
worth an hour's purchase; for I have used it before now for my own purposes,
and the rascally lascar who runs it has sworn to have vengeance upon me.
There is a trap-door at the back of that building, near the corner of Paul's
Wharf, which could tell some strange tales of what has passed through it upon
the moonless nights."
     "What!  You do not mean bodies?"
     "Ay, bodies, Watson.  We should be rich men if we had L1000 for every
poor devil who has been done to death in that den.  It is the vilest
murder-trap on the whole riverside, and I fear that Neville St. Clair has
entered it never to leave it more.  But our trap should be here."  He put his
two forefingers between his teeth and whistled shrilly--a signal which was
answered by a similar whistle from the distance, followed shortly by the
rattle of wheels and the clink of horses' hoofs.
     "Now, Watson," said Holmes, as a tall dog-cart dashed up through the
gloom, throwing out two golden tunnels of yellow light from its side lanterns.
"You'll come with me, won't you?"
     "If I can be of use."
     "Oh, a trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more so.
My room at The Cedars is a double-bedded one."
     "The Cedars?"
     "Yes; that is Mr. St. Clair's house.  I am staying there while I conduct
the inquiry."
     "Where is it, then?"
     "Near Lee, in Kent.  We have a seven-mile drive before us."
     "But I am all in the dark."
     "Of course you are.  You'll know all about it presently.  Jump up here.
All right, John; we shall not need you.  Here's half a crown.  Look out for me
to-morrow, about eleven.  Give her her head.  So long, then!"
     He flicked the horse with his whip, and we dashed away through the
endless succession of sombre and deserted streets, which widened gradually,
until we were flying across a broad balustraded bridge, with the murky river
flowing sluggishly beneath us.  Beyond lay another dull wilderness of bricks
and mortar, its silence broken only by the heavy, regular footfall of the
policeman, or the songs and shouts of some belated party of revellers.  A dull
wrack was drifting slowly across the sky, and a star or two twinkled dimly
here and there through the rifts of the clouds.  Holmes drove in silence, with
his head sunk upon his breast, and the air of a man who is lost in thought,
while I sat beside him, curious to learn what this new quest might be which
seemed to tax his powers so sorely, and yet afraid to break in upon the
current of his thoughts.  We had driven several miles, and were beginning to
get to the fringe of the belt of suburban villas, when he shook himself,
shrugged his shoulders, and lit up his pipe with the air of a man who has
satisfied himself that he is acting for the best.
     "You have a grand gift of silence, Watson," said he.  "It makes you quite
invaluable as a companion.  'Pon my word, it is a great thing for me to have
someone to talk to, for my own thoughts are not over-pleasant.  I was
wondering what I should say to this dear little woman to-night when she meets
me at the door."
     "You forget that I know nothing about it."
     "I shall just have time to tell you the facts of the case before we get
to Lee.  It seems absurdly simple, and yet, somehow, I can get nothing to go
upon.  There's plenty of thread, no doubt, but I can't get the end of it into
my hand.  Now, I'll state the case clearly and concisely to you, Watson, and
maybe you can see a spark where all is dark to me."
     "Proceed, then."
     "Some years ago--to be definite, in May, 1884--there came to Lee a
gentleman, Neville St. Clair by name, who appeared to have plenty of money.
He took a large villa, laid out the grounds very nicely, and lived generally
in good style.  By degrees he made friends in the neighbourhood, and in 1887
he married the daughter of a local brewer, by whom he now has two children.
He had no occupation, but was interested in several companies and went into
town as a rule in the morning, returning by the 5:14 from Cannon Street every
night.  Mr. St. Clair is now thirty-seven years of age, is a man of temperate
habits, a good husband, a very affectionate father, and a man who is popular
with all who know him.  I may add that his whole debts at the present moment,
as far as we have been able to ascertain, amount to L88 10s., while he has
L220 standing to his credit in the Capital and Counties Bank.  There is no
reason, therefore, to think that money troubles have been weighing upon his
mind.
     "Last Monday Mr. Neville St. Clair went into town rather earlier than
usual, remarking before he started that he had two important commissions to
perform, and that he would bring his little boy home a box of bricks.  Now, by
the merest chance, his wife received a telegram upon this same Monday, very
shortly after his departure, to the effect that a small parcel of considerable
value which she had been expecting was waiting for her at the offices of the
Aberdeen Shipping Company.  Now, if you are well up in your London, you will
know that the office of the company is in Fresno Street, which branches out of
Upper Swandam Lane, where you found me to-night.  Mrs. St. Clair had her
lunch, started for the City, did some shopping, proceeded to the company's
office, got her packet, and found herself at exactly 4:35 walking through
Swandam Lane on her way back to the station.  Have you followed me so far?"
     "It is very clear."
     "If you remember, Monday was an exceedingly hot day, and Mrs. St. Clair
walked slowly, glancing about in the hope of seeing a cab, as she did not like
the neighbourhood in which she found herself.  While she was walking in this
way down Swandam Lane, she suddenly heard an ejaculation or cry, and was
struck cold to see her husband looking down at her and, as it seemed to her,
beckoning to her from a second-floor window.  The window was open, and she
distinctly saw his face, which she describes as being terribly agitated.  He
waved his hands frantically to her, and then vanished from the window so
suddenly that it seemed to her that he had been plucked back by some
irresistible force from behind.  One singular point which struck her quick
feminine eye was that although he wore some dark coat, such as he had started
to town in, he had on neither collar nor necktie.
     "Convinced that something was amiss with him, she rushed down the steps--
for the house was none other than the opium den in which you found me to-night
--and running through the front room she attempted to ascend the stairs which
led to the first floor.  At the foot of the stairs, however, she met this
lascar scoundrel of whom I have spoken, who thrust her back and, aided by a
Dane, who acts as assistant there, pushed her out into the street.  Filled
with the most maddening doubts and fears, she rushed down the lane and, by
rare good-fortune, met in Fresno Street a number of constables with an
inspector, all on their way to their beat.  The inspector and two men
accompanied her back, and in spite of the continued resistance of the
proprietor, they made their way to the room in which Mr. St. Clair had last
been seen.  There was no sign of him there.  In fact, in the whole of that
floor there was no one to be found save a crippled wretch of hideous aspect,
who, it seems, made his home there.  Both he and the lascar stoutly swore that
no one else had been in the front room during the afternoon.  So determined
was their denial that the inspector was staggered, and had almost come to
believe that Mrs. St. Clair had been deluded when, with a cry, she sprang at a
small deal box which lay upon the table and tore the lid from it.  Out there
fell a cascade of children's bricks.  It was the toy which he had promised to
bring home.
     "This discovery, and the evident confusion which the cripple showed, made
the inspector realize that the matter was serious.  The rooms were carefully
examined, and results all pointed to an abominable crime.  The front room was
plainly furnished as a sitting-room and led into a small bedroom, which looked
out upon the back of one of the wharves.  Between the wharf and the bedroom
window is a narrow strip, which is dry at low tide but is covered at high tide
with at least four and a half feet of water.  The bedroom window was a broad
one and opened from below.  On examination traces of blood were to be seen
upon the window-sill, and several scattered drops were visible upon the wooden
floor of the bedroom.  Thrust away behind a curtain in the front room were all
the clothes of Mr. Neville St. Clair, with the exception of his coat.  His
boots, his socks, his hat, and his watch--all were there.  There were no signs
of violence upon any of these garments, and there were no other traces of Mr.
Neville St. Clair.  Out of the window he must apparently have gone, for no
other exit could be discovered, and the ominous bloodstains upon the sill gave
little promise that he could save himself by swimming, for the tide was at its
very highest at the moment of the tragedy.
     "And now as to the villains who seemed to be immediately implicated in
the matter.  The lascar was known to be a man of the vilest antecedents, but
as, by Mrs. St. Clair's story, he was known to have been at the foot of the
stair within a very few seconds of her husband's appearance at the window, he
could hardly have been more than an accessory to the crime.  His defense was
one of absolute ignorance, and he protested that he had no knowledge as to the
doings of Hugh Boone, his lodger, and that he could not account in any way for
the presence of the missing gentleman's clothes.
     "So much for the lascar manager.  Now for the sinister cripple who lives
upon the second floor of the opium den, and who was certainly the last human
being whose eyes rested upon Neville St. Clair.  His name is Hugh Boone, and
his hideous face is one which is familiar to every man who goes much to the
City.  He is a professional beggar, though in order to avoid the police
regulations he pretends to a small trade in wax vestas.  Some little distance
down Threadneedle Street, upon the left-hand side, there is, as you may have
remarked, a small angle in the wall.  Here it is that this creature takes his
daily seat, cross-legged, with his tiny stock of matches on his lap, and as he
is a piteous spectacle a small rain of charity descends into the greasy
leather cap which lies upon the pavement beside him.  I have watched the
fellow more than once before ever I thought of making his professional
acquaintance, and I have been surprised at the harvest which he has reaped in
a short time.  His appearance, you see, is so remarkable that no one can pass
him without observing him.  A shock of orange hair, a pale face disfigured by
a horrible scar, which, by its contraction, has turned up the outer edge of
his upper lip, a bulldog chin, and a pair of very penetrating dark eyes, which
present a singular contrast to the colour of his hair, all mark him out from
amid the common crowd of mendicants, and so, too, does his wit, for he is ever
ready with a reply to any piece of chaff which may be thrown at him by the
passers-by.  This is the man whom we now learn to have been the lodger at the
opium den, and to have been the last man to see the gentleman of whom we are
in quest."
     "But a cripple!" said I.  "What could he have done single-handed against
a man in the prime of life?"
     "He is a cripple in the sense that he walks with a limp; but in other
respects he appears to be a powerful and well-nurtured man.  Surely your
medical experience would tell you, Watson, that weakness in one limb is often
compensated for by exceptional strength in the others."
     "Pray continue your narrative."
     "Mrs. St. Clair had fainted at the sight of the blood upon the window,
and she was escorted home in a cab by the police, as her presence could be of
no help to them in their investigations.  Inspector Barton, who had charge of
the case, made a very careful examination of the premises, but without finding
anything which threw any light upon the matter.  One mistake had been made in
not arresting Boone instantly, as he was allowed some few minutes during which
he might have communicated with his friend the lascar, but this fault was soon
remedied, and he was seized and searched, without anything being found which
could incriminate him.  There were, it is true, some blood-stains upon his
right shirt-sleeve, but he pointed to his ring-finger, which had been cut near
the nail, and explained that the bleeding came from there, adding that he had
been to the window not long before, and that the stains which had been
observed there came doubtless from the same source.  He denied strenuously
having ever seen Mr. Neville St. Clair and swore that the presence of the
clothes in his room was as much a mystery to him as to the police.  As to Mrs.
St. Clair's assertion that she had actually seen her husband at the window, he
declared that she must have been either mad or dreaming.  He was removed,
loudly protesting, to the police-station, while the inspector remained upon
the premises in the hope that the ebbing tide might afford some fresh clue.
     "And it did, though they hardly found upon the mud-bank what they had
feared to find.  It was Neville St. Clair's coat, and not Neville St. Clair,
which lay uncovered as the tide receded.  And what do you think they found in
the pockets?"
     "I cannot imagine."
     "No, I don't think you would guess.  Every pocket stuffed with pennies
and half-pennies--421 pennies and 270 half-pennies.  It was no wonder that it
had not been swept away by the tide.  But a human body is a different matter.
There is a fierce eddy between the wharf and the house.  It seemed likely
enough that the weighted coat had remained when the stripped body had been
sucked away into the river."
     "But I understand that all the other clothes were found in the room.
Would the body be dressed in a coat alone?"
     "No, sir, but the facts might be met speciously enough.  Suppose that
this man Boone had thrust Neville St. Clair through the window, there is no
human eye which could have seen the deed.  What would he do then?  It would of
course instantly strike him that he must get rid of the tell-tale garments.
He would seize the coat, then, and be in the act of throwing it out, when it
would occur to him that it would swim and not sink.  He has little time, for
he has heard the scuffle downstairs when the wife tried to force her way up,
and perhaps he has already heard from his lascar confederate that the police
are hurrying up the street.  There is not an instant to be lost.  He rushes to
some secret hoard, where he has accumulated the fruits of his beggary, and he
stuffs all the coins upon which he can lay his hands into the pockets to make
sure of the coat's sinking.  He throws it out, and would have done the same
with the other garments had not he heard the rush of steps below, and only
just had time to close the window when the police appeared."
     "It certainly sounds feasible."
     "Well, we will take it as a working hypothesis for want of a better.
Boone, as I have told you, was arrested and taken to the station, but it could
not be shown that there had ever before been anything against him.  He had for
years been known as a professional beggar, but his life appeared to have been
a very quiet and innocent one.  There the matter stands at present, and the
questions which have to be solved--what Neville St. Clair was doing in the
opium den, what happened to him when there, where is he now, and what Hugh
Boone had to do with his disappearance--are all as far from a solution as
ever.  I confess that I cannot recall any case within my experience which
looked at the first glance so simple and yet which presented such
difficulties."
     While Sherlock Holmes had been detailing this singular series of events,
we had been whirling through the outskirts of the great town until the last
straggling houses had been left behind, and we rattled along with a country
hedge upon either side of us.  Just as he finished, however, we drove through
two scattered villages, where a few lights still glimmered in the windows.
     "We are on the outskirts of Lee," said my companion.  "We have touched on
three English counties in our short drive, starting in Middlesex, passing over
an angle of Surrey, and ending in Kent.  See that light among the trees?  That
is The Cedars, and beside that lamp sits a woman whose anxious ears have
already, I have little doubt, caught the clink of our horse's feet."
     "But why are you not conducting the case from Baker Street?" I asked.
     "Because there are many inquiries which must be made out here.  Mrs. St.
Clair has most kindly put two rooms at my disposal, and you may rest assured
that she will have nothing but a welcome for my friend and colleague.  I hate
to meet her, Watson, when I have no news of her husband.  Here we are.  Whoa,
there, whoa!"
     We had pulled up in front of a large villa which stood within its own
grounds.  A stable-boy had run out to the horse's head, and springing down I
followed Holmes up the small, winding gravel-drive which led to the house.  As
we approached, the door flew open, and a little blonde woman stood in the
opening, clad in some sort of light mousseline de soie, with a touch of fluffy
pink chiffon at her neck and wrists.  She stood with her figure outlined
against the flood of light, one hand upon the door, one half-raised in her
eagerness, her body slightly bent, her head and face protruded, with eager
eyes and parted lips, a standing question.
     "Well?" she cried, "well?"  And then, seeing that there were two of us,
she gave a cry of hope which sank into a groan as she saw that my companion
shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.
     "No good news?"
     "None."
     "No bad?"
     "No."
     "Thank God for that.  But come in.  You must be weary, for you have had a
long day."
     "This is my friend, Dr. Watson.  He has been of most vital use to me in
several of my cases, and a lucky chance has made it possible for me to bring
him out and associate him with this investigation."
     "I am delighted to see you," said she, pressing my hand warmly.  "You
will, I am sure, forgive anything that may be wanting in our arrangements,
when you consider the blow which has come so suddenly upon us."
     "My dear madam," said I, "I am an old campaigner, and if I were not I can
very well see that no apology is needed.  If I can be of any assistance,
either to you or to my friend here, I shall be indeed happy."
     "Now, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said the lady as we entered a well-lit
dining-room, upon the table of which a cold supper had been laid out, "I
should very much like to ask you one or two plain questions, to which I beg
that you will give a plain answer."
     "Certainly, madam."
     "Do not trouble about my feelings.  I am not hysterical, nor given to
fainting.  I simply wish to hear your real, real opinion."
     "Upon what point?"
     "In your heart of hearts, do you think that Neville is alive?"
     Sherlock Holmes seemed to be embarrassed by the question.  "Frankly,
now!" she repeated, standing upon the rug and looking keenly down at him as he
leaned back in a basket-chair.
     "Frankly, then, madam, I do not."
     "You think that he is dead?"
     "I do."
     "Murdered?"
     "I don't say that.  Perhaps."
     "And on what day did he meet his death?"
     "On Monday."
     "Then perhaps, Mr. Holmes, you will be good enough to explain how it is
that I have received a letter from him to-day."
     Sherlock Holmes sprang out of his chair as if he had been galvanized.
     "What!" he roared.
     "Yes, to-day."  She stood smiling, holding up a little slip of paper in
the air.
     "May I see it?"
     "Certainly."
     He snatched it from her in his eagerness, and smoothing it out upon the
table he drew over the lamp and examined it intently.  I had left my chair and
was gazing at it over his shoulder.  The envelope was a very coarse one and
was stamped with the Gravesend postmark and with the date of that very day, or
rather of the day before, for it was considerably after midnight.
     "Coarse writing," murmured Holmes.  "Surely this is not your husband's
writing, madam."
     "No, but the enclosure is."
     "I perceive also that whoever addressed the envelope had to go and
inquire as to the address."
     "How can you tell that?"
     "The name, you see, is in perfectly black ink, which has dried itself.
The rest is of the grayish colour, which shows that blotting-paper has been
used.  If it had been written straight off, and then blotted, none would be of
a deep black shade.  This man has written the name, and there has then been a
pause before he wrote the address, which can only mean that he was not
familiar with it.  It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so
important as trifles.  Let us now see the letter.  Ha!  there has been an
enclosure here!"
     "Yes, there was a ring.  His signet-ring."
     "And you are sure that this is your husband's hand?"
     "One of his hands."
     "One?"
     "His hand when he wrote hurriedly.  It is very unlike his usual writing,
and yet I know it well."

               "Dearest do not be frightened.  All will come well.  There  is
          a huge error which it may take some little time to rectify.  Wait in
          patience.
                                                               "NEVILLE.

Written in pencil upon the fly-leaf of a book, octavo size, no water-mark.
Hum!  Posted to-day in Gravesend by a man with a dirty thumb.  Ha!  And the
flap has been gummed, if I am not very much in error, by a person who had been
chewing tobacco.  And you have no doubt that it is your husband's hand,
madam?"
     "None.  Neville wrote those words."
     "And they were posted to-day at Gravesend.  Well, Mrs. St. Clair, the
clouds lighten, though I should not venture to say that the danger is over."
     "But he must be alive, Mr. Holmes."
     "Unless this is a clever forgery to put us on the wrong scent.  The ring,
after all, proves nothing.  It may have been taken from him."
     "No, no; it is, it is his very own writing!"
     "Very well.  It may, however, have been written on Monday and only posted
to-day."
     "That is possible."
     "If so, much may have happened between."
     "Oh, you must not discourage me, Mr. Holmes.  I know that all is well
with him.  There is so keen a sympathy between us that I should know if evil
came upon him.  On the very day that I saw him last he cut himself in the
bedroom, and yet I in the dining-room rushed upstairs instantly with the
utmost certainty that something had happened.  Do you think that I would
respond to such a trifle and yet be ignorant of his death?"
     "I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be
more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner.  And in this
letter you certainly have a very strong piece of evidence to corroborate your
view.  But if your husband is alive and able to write letters, why should he
remain away from you?"
     "I cannot imagine.  It is unthinkable."
     "And on Monday he made no remarks before leaving you?"
     "No."
     "And you were surprised to see him in Swandam Lane?"
     "Very much so."
     "Was the window open?"
     "Yes."
     "Then he might have called to you?"
     "He might."
     "He only, as I understand, gave an inarticulate cry?"
     "Yes."
     "A call for help, you thought?"
     "Yes.  He waved his hands."
     "But it might have been a cry of surprise.  Astonishment at the
unexpected sight of you might cause him to throw up his hands?"
     "It is possible."
     "And you thought he was pulled back?"
     "He disappeared so suddenly."
     "He might have leaped back.  You did not see anyone else in the room?"
     "No, but this horrible man confessed to having been there, and the lascar
was at the foot of the stairs."
     "Quite so.  Your husband, as far as you could see, had his ordinary
clothes on?"
     "But without his collar or tie.  I distinctly saw his bare throat."
     "Had he ever spoken of Swandam Lane?"
     "Never."
     "Had he ever showed any signs of having taken opium?"
     "Never."
     "Thank you, Mrs. St. Clair.  Those are the principal points about which I
wished to be absolutely clear.  We shall now have a little supper and then
retire, for we may have a very busy day to-morrow."
     A large and comfortable double-bedded room had been placed at our
disposal, and I was quickly between the sheets, for I was weary after my night
of adventure.  Sherlock Holmes was a man, however, who, when he had an
unsolved problem upon his mind, would go for days, and even for a week,
without rest, turning it over, rearranging his facts, looking at it from every
point of view until he had either fathomed it or convinced himself that his
data were insufficient.  It was soon evident to me that he was now preparing
for an all-night sitting.  He took off his coat and waistcoat, put on a large
blue dressing-gown, and then wandered about the room collecting pillows from
his bed and cushions from the sofa and armchairs.  With these he constructed a
sort of Eastern divan, upon which he perched himself cross-legged, with an
ounce of shag tobacco and a box of matches laid out in front of him.  In the
dim light of the lamp I saw him sitting there, an old briar pipe between his
lips, his eyes fixed vacantly upon the corner of the ceiling, the blue smoke
curling up from him, silent, motionless, with the light shining upon his
strong-set aquiline features.  So he sat as I dropped off to sleep, and so he
sat when a sudden ejaculation caused me to wake up, and I found the summer sun
shining into the apartment.  The pipe was still between his lips, the smoke
still curled upward, and the room was full of a dense tobacco haze, but
nothing remained of the heap of shag which I had seen upon the previous night.
     "Awake, Watson?" he asked.
     "Yes."
     "Game for a morning drive?"
     "Certainly."
     "Then dress.  No one is stirring yet, but I know where the stable-boy
sleeps, and we shall soon have the trap out."  He chuckled to himself as he
spoke, his eyes twinkled, and he seemed a different man to the sombre thinker
of the previous night.
     As I dressed I glanced at my watch.  It was no wonder that no one was
stirring.  It was twenty-five minutes past four.  I had hardly finished when
Holmes returned with the news that the boy was putting in the horse.
     "I want to test a little theory of mine," said he, pulling on his boots.
"I think, Watson, that you are now standing in the presence of one of the most
absolute fools in Europe.  I deserve to be kicked from here to Charing Cross.
But I think I have the key of the affair now."
     "And where is it?"  I asked, smiling.
     "In the bathroom," he answered.  "Oh, yes, I am not joking," he
continued, seeing my look of incredulity.  "I have just been there, and I have
taken it out, and I have got it in this Gladstone bag.  Come on, my boy, and
we shall see whether it will not fit the lock."
     We made our way downstairs as quietly as possible, and out into the
bright morning sunshine.  In the road stood our horse and trap, with the
half-clad stable-boy waiting at the head.  We both sprang in, and away we
dashed down the London Road.  A few country carts were stirring, bearing in
vegetables to the metropolis, but the lines of villas on either side were as
silent and lifeless as some city in a dream.
     "It has been in some points a singular case," said Holmes, flicking the
horse on into a gallop.  "I confess that I have been as blind as a mole, but
it is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all."
     In town the earliest risers were just beginning to look sleepily from
their windows as we drove through the streets of the Surrey side.  Passing
down the Waterloo Bridge Road we crossed over the river, and dashing up
Wellington Street wheeled sharply to the right and found ourselves in Bow
Street.  Sherlock Holmes was well known to the force, and the two constables
at the door saluted him.  One of them held the horse's head while the other
led us in.
     "Who is on duty?" asked Holmes.
     "Inspector Bradstreet, sir."
     "Ah, Bradstreet, how are you?"  A tall, stout official had come down the
stone-flagged passage, in a peaked cap and frogged jacket.  "I wish to have a
quiet word with you, Bradstreet."
     "Certainly, Mr. Holmes.  Step into my room here."
     It was a small, office-like room, with a huge ledger upon the table, and
a telephone projecting from the wall.  The inspector sat down at his desk.
     "What can I do for you, Mr. Holmes?"
     "I called about that beggarman, Boone--the one who was charged with being
concerned in the disappearance of Mr. Neville St. Clair, of Lee."
     "Yes.  He was brought up and remanded for further inquiries."
     "So I heard.  You have him here?"
     "In the cells."
     "Is he quiet?"
     "Oh, he gives no trouble.  But he is a dirty scoundrel."
     "Dirty?"
     "Yes, it is all we can do to make him wash his hands, and his face is as
black as a tinker's.  Well, when once his case has been settled, he will have
a regular prison bath; and I think, if you saw him, you would agree with me
that he needed it."
     "I should like to see him very much."
     "Would you?  That is easily done.  Come this way.  You can leave your
bag."
     "No, I think that I'll take it."
     "Very good.  Come this way, if you please."  He led us down a passage,
opened a barred door, passed down a winding stair, and brought us to a
whitewashed corridor with a line of doors on each side.
     "The third on the right is his," said the inspector.  "Here it is!"  He
quietly shot back a panel in the upper part of the door and glanced through.
     "He is asleep," said he.  "You can see him very well."
     We both put our eyes to the grating.  The prisoner lay with his face
towards us, in a very deep sleep, breathing slowly and heavily.  He was a
middle-sized man, coarsely clad as became his calling, with a coloured shirt
protruding through the rent in his tattered coat.  He was, as the inspector
had said, extremely dirty, but the grime which covered his face could not
conceal its repulsive ugliness.  A broad wheal from an old scar ran right
across it from eye to chin, and by its contraction had turned up one side of
the upper lip, so that three teeth were exposed in a perpetual snarl.  A shock
of very bright red hair grew low over his eyes and forehead.
     "He's a beauty, isn't he?" said the inspector.
     "He certainly needs a wash," remarked Holmes.  "I had an idea that he
might, and I took the liberty of bringing the tools with me."  He opened the
Gladstone bag as he spoke, and took out, to my astonishment, a very large
bath-sponge.
     "He!  he!  You are a funny one," chuckled the inspector.
     "Now, if you will have the great goodness to open that door very quietly,
we will soon make him cut a much more respectable figure."
     "Well, I don't know why not," said the inspector.  "He doesn't look a
credit to the Bow Street cells, does he?"  He slipped his key into the lock,
and we all very quietly entered the cell.  The sleeper half turned, and then
settled down once more into a deep slumber.  Holmes stooped to the water-jug,
moistened his sponge, and then rubbed it twice vigorously across and down the
prisoner's face.
     "Let me introduce you," he shouted, "to Mr. Neville St. Clair, of Lee, in
the county of Kent."
     Never in my life have I seen such a sight.  The man's face peeled off
under the sponge like the bark from a tree.  Gone was the coarse brown tint!
Gone, too, was the horrid scar which had seamed it across, and the twisted lip
which had given the repulsive sneer to the face!  A twitch brought away the
tangled red hair, and there, sitting up in his bed, was a pale, sad-faced,
refined-looking man, black-haired and smooth-skinned, rubbing his eyes and
staring about him with sleepy bewilderment.  Then suddenly realizing the
exposure, he broke into a scream and threw himself down with his face to the
pillow.
     "Great heavens!" cried the inspector, "it is, indeed, the missing man.  I
know him from the photograph."
     The prisoner turned with the reckless air of a man who abandons himself
to his destiny.  "Be it so," said he.  "And pray, what am I charged with?"
     "With making away with Mr. Neville St. -- -- Oh, come, you can't be
charged with that unless they make a case of attempted suicide of it," said
the inspector with a grin.  "Well, I have been twenty-seven years in the
force, but this really takes the cake."
     "If I am Mr. Neville St. Clair, then it is obvious that no crime has been
committed, and that, therefore, I am illegally detained."
     "No crime, but a very great error has been committed," said Holmes.  "You
would have done better to have trusted your wife."
     "It was not the wife; it was the children," groaned the prisoner.  "God
help me, I would not have them ashamed of their father.  My God!  What an
exposure!  What can I do?"
     Sherlock Holmes sat down beside him on the couch and patted him kindly on
the shoulder.
     "If you leave it to a court of law to clear the matter up," said he, "of
course you can hardly avoid publicity.  On the other hand, if you convince the
police authorities that there is no possible case against you, I do not know
that there is any reason that the details should find their way into the
papers.  Inspector Bradstreet would, I am sure, make notes upon anything which
you might tell us and submit it to the proper authorities.  The case would
then never go into court at all."
     "God bless you!" cried the prisoner passionately.  "I would have endured
imprisonment, ay, even execution, rather than have left my miserable secret as
a family blot to my children.
     "You are the first who have ever heard my story.  My father was a
school-master in Chesterfield, where I received an excellent education.  I
travelled in my youth, took to the stage, and finally became a reporter on an
evening paper in London.  One day my editor wished to have a series of
articles upon begging in the metropolis, and I volunteered to supply them.
There was the point from which all my adventures started.  It was only by
trying begging as an amateur that I could get the facts upon which to base my
articles.  When an actor I had, of course, learned all the secrets of making
up, and had been famous in the green-room for my skill.  I took advantage now
of my attainments.  I painted my face, and to make myself as pitiable as
possible I made a good scar and fixed one side of my lip in a twist by the aid
of a small slip of flesh-coloured plaster.  Then with a red head of hair, and
an appropriate dress, I took my station in the business part of the city,
ostensibly as a match-seller but really as a beggar.  For seven hours I plied
my trade, and when I returned home in the evening I found to my surprise that
I had received no less than 26s. 4d.
     "I wrote my articles and thought little more of the matter until, some
time later, I backed a bill for a friend and had a writ served upon me for
L25.  I was at my wit's end where to get the money, but a sudden idea came to
me.  I begged a fortnight's grace from the creditor, asked for a holiday from
my employers, and spent the time in begging in the City under my disguise.  In
ten days I had the money and had paid the debt.
     "Well, you can imagine how hard it was to settle down to arduous work at
L2 a week when I knew that I could earn as much in a day by smearing my face
with a little paint, laying my cap on the ground, and sitting still.  It was a
long fight between my pride and the money, but the dollars won at last, and I
threw up reporting and sat day after day in the corner which I had first
chosen, inspiring pity by my ghastly face and filling my pockets with coppers.
Only one man knew my secret.  He was the keeper of a low den in which I used
to lodge in Swandam Lane, where I could every morning emerge as a squalid
beggar and in the evenings transform myself into a well-dressed man about
town.  This fellow, a lascar, was well paid by me for his rooms, so that I
knew that my secret was safe in his possession.
     "Well, very soon I found that I was saving considerable sums of money.  I
do not mean that any beggar in the streets of London could earn L700 a year--
which is less than my average takings--but I had exceptional advantages in my
power of making up, and also in a facility of repartee, which improved by
practice and made me quite a recognized character in the City.  All day a
stream of pennies, varied by silver, poured in upon me, and it was a very bad
day in which I failed to take L2.
     "As I grew richer I grew more ambitious, took a house in the country, and
eventually married, without anyone having a suspicion as to my real
occupation.  My dear wife knew that I had business in the City.  She little
knew what.
     "Last Monday I had finished for the day and was dressing in my room above
the opium den when I looked out of my window and saw, to my horror and
astonishment, that my wife was standing in the street, with her eyes fixed
full upon me.  I gave a cry of surprise, threw up my arms to cover my face,
and, rushing to my confidant, the lascar, entreated him to prevent anyone from
coming up to me.  I heard her voice downstairs, but I knew that she could not
ascend.  Swiftly I threw off my clothes, pulled on those of a beggar, and put
on my pigments and wig.  Even a wife's eyes could not pierce so complete a
disguise.  But then it occurred to me that there might be a search in the
room, and that the clothes might betray me.  I threw open the window,
reopening by my violence a small cut which I had inflicted upon myself in the
bedroom that morning.  Then I seized my coat, which was weighted by the
coppers which I had just transferred to it from the leather bag in which I
carried my takings.  I hurled it out of the window, and it disappeared into
the Thames.  The other clothes would have followed, but at that moment there
was a rush of constables up the stair, and a few minutes after I found,
rather, I confess, to my relief, that instead of being identified as Mr.
Neville St. Clair, I was arrested as his murderer.
     "I do not know that there is anything else for me to explain.  I was
determined to preserve my disguise as long as possible, and hence my
preference for a dirty face.  Knowing that my wife would be terribly anxious,
I slipped off my ring and confided it to the lascar at a moment when no
constable was watching me, together with a hurried scrawl, telling her that
she had no cause to fear."
     "That note only reached her yesterday," said Holmes.
     "Good God!  What a week she must have spent!"
     "The police have watched this lascar," said Inspector Bradstreet, "and I
can quite understand that he might find it difficult to post a letter
unobserved.  Probably he handed it to some sailor customer of his, who forgot
all about it for some days."
     "That was it," said Holmes, nodding approvingly; "I have no doubt of it.
But have you never been prosecuted for begging?"
     "Many times; but what was a fine to me?"
     "It must stop here, however," said Bradstreet.  "If the police are to
hush this thing up, there must be no more of Hugh Boone."
     "I have sworn it by the most solemn oaths which a man can take."
     "In that case I think that it is probable that no further steps may be
taken.  But if you are found again, then all must come out.  I am sure, Mr.
Holmes, that we are very much indebted to you for having cleared the matter
up.  I wish I knew how you reach your results."
     "I reached this one," said my friend, "by sitting upon five pillows and
consuming an ounce of shag.  I think, Watson, that if we drive to Baker Street
we shall just be in time for breakfast."