THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES

                         THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES


                       THE ADVENTURE OF THE EMPTY HOUSE

IT WAS in the spring of the year 1894 that all London was interested, and the
fashionable world dismayed, by the murder of the Honourable Ronald Adair under
most unusual and inexplicable circumstances.  The public has already learned
those particulars of the crime which came out in the police investigation, but
a good deal was suppressed upon that occasion, since the case for the
prosecution was so overwhelmingly strong that it was not necessary to bring
forward all the facts.  Only now, at the end of nearly ten years, am I allowed
to supply those missing links which make up the whole of that remarkable
chain.  The crime was of interest in itself, but that interest was as nothing
to me compared to the inconceivable sequel, which afforded me the greatest
shock and surprise of any event in my adventurous life.  Even now, after this
long interval, I find myself thrilling as I think of it, and feeling once more
that sudden flood of joy, amazement, and incredulity which utterly submerged
my mind.  Let me say to that public, which has shown some interest in those
glimpses which I have occasionally given them of the thoughts and actions of a
very remarkable man, that they are not to blame me if I have not shared my
knowledge with them, for I should have considered it my first duty to do so,
had I not been barred by a positive prohibition from his own lips, which was
only withdrawn upon the third of last month.
     It can be imagined that my close intimacy with Sherlock Holmes had
interested me deeply in crime, and that after his disappearance I never failed
to read with care the various problems which came before the public.  And I
even attempted, more than once, for my own private satisfaction, to employ his
methods in their solution, though with indifferent success.  There was none,
however, which appealed to me like this tragedy of Ronald Adair.  As I read
the evidence at the inquest, which led up to a verdict of wilful murder
against some person or persons unknown, I realized more clearly than I had
ever done the loss which the community had sustained by the death of Sherlock
Holmes.  There were points about this strange business which would, I was
sure, have specially appealed to him, and the efforts of the police would have
been supplemented, or more probably anticipated, by the trained observation
and the alert mind of the first criminal agent in Europe.  All day, as I drove
upon my round, I turned over the case in my mind and found no explanation
which appeared to me to be adequate.  At the risk of telling a twice-told
tale, I will recapitulate the facts as they were known to the public at the
conclusion of the inquest.
     The Honourable Ronald Adair was the second son of the Earl of Maynooth,
at that time governor of one of the Australian colonies.  Adair's mother had
returned from Australia to undergo the operation for cataract, and she, her
son Ronald, and her daughter Hilda were living together at 427 Park Lane.  The
youth moved in the best society--had, so far as was known, no enemies and no
particular vices.  He had been engaged to Miss Edith Woodley, of Carstairs,
but the engagement had been broken off by mutual consent some months before,
and there was no sign that it had left any very profound feeling behind it.
For the rest of the man's life moved in a narrow and conventional circle, for
his habits were quiet and his nature unemotional.  Yet it was upon this
easy-going young aristocrat that death came, in most strange and unexpected
form, between the hours of ten and eleven-twenty on the night of March 30,
1894.
     Ronald Adair was fond of cards--playing continually, but never for such
stakes as would hurt him.  He was a member of the Baldwin, the Cavendish, and
the Bagatelle card clubs.  It was shown that, after dinner on the day of his
death, he had played a rubber of whist at the latter club.  He had also played
there in the afternoon.  The evidence of those who had played with him--Mr.
Murray, Sir John Hardy, and Colonel Moran--showed that the game was whist, and
that there was a fairly equal fall of the cards.  Adair might have lost five
pounds, but not more.  His fortune was a considerable one, and such a loss
could not in any way affect him.  He had played nearly every day at one club
or other, but he was a cautious player, and usually rose a winner.  It came
out in evidence that, in partnership with Colonel Moran, he had actually won
as much as four hundred and twenty pounds in a sitting, some weeks before,
from Godfrey Milner and Lord Balmoral.  So much for his recent history as it
came out at the inquest.
     On the evening of the crime, he returned from the club exactly at ten.
His mother and sister were out spending the evening with a relation.  The
servant deposed that she heard him enter the front room on the second floor,
generally used as his sitting-room.  She had lit a fire there, and as it
smoked she had opened the window.  No sound was heard from the room until
eleven-twenty, the hour of the return of Lady Maynooth and her daughter.
Desiring to say good-night, she attempted to enter her son's room.  The door
was locked on the inside, and no answer could be got to their cries and
knocking.  Help was obtained, and the door forced.  The unfortunate young man
was found lying near the table.  His head had been horribly mutilated by an
expanding revolver bullet, but no weapon of any sort was to be found in the
room.  On the table lay two banknotes for ten pounds each and seventeen pounds
ten in silver and gold, the money arranged in little piles of varying amount.
There were some figures also upon a sheet of paper, with the names of some
club friends opposite to them, from which it was conjectured that before his
death he was endeavouring to make out his losses or winnings at cards.
     A minute examination of the circumstances served only to make the case
more complex.  In the first place, no reason could be given why the young man
should have fastened the door upon the inside.  There was the possibility that
the murderer had done this, and had afterwards escaped by the window.  The
drop was at least twenty feet, however, and a bed of crocuses in full bloom
lay beneath.  Neither the flowers nor the earth showed any sign of having been
disturbed, nor were there any marks upon the narrow strip of grass which
separated the house from the road.  Apparently, therefore, it was the young
man himself who had fastened the door.  But how did he come by his death?  No
one could have climbed up to the window without leaving traces.  Suppose a man
had fired through the window, he would indeed be a remarkable shot who could
with a revolver inflict so deadly a wound.  Again, Park Lane is a frequented
thoroughfare; there is a cab stand within a hundred yards of the house.  No
one had heard a shot.  And yet there was the dead man, and there the revolver
bullet, which had mushroomed out, as soft-nosed bullets will, and so inflicted
a wound which must have caused instantaneous death.  Such were the
circumstances of the Park Lane Mystery, which were further complicated by
entire absence of motive, since, as I have said, young Adair was not known to
have any enemy, and no attempt had been made to remove the money or valuables
in the room.
     All day I turned these facts over in my mind, endeavouring to hit upon
some theory which could reconcile them all, and to find that line of least
resistance which my poor friend had declared to be the starting-point of every
investigation.  I confess that I made little progress.  In the evening I
strolled across the Park, and found myself about six o'clock at the Oxford
Street end of Park Lane.  A group of loafers upon the pavements, all staring
up at a particular window, directed me to the house which I had come to see.
A tall, thin man with coloured glasses, whom I strongly suspected of being a
plain-clothes detective, was pointing out some theory of his own, while the
others crowded round to listen to what he said.  I got as near him as I could,
but his observations seemed to me to be absurd, so I withdrew again in some
disgust.  As I did so I struck against an elderly, deformed man, who had been
behind me, and I knocked down several books which he was carrying.  I remember
that as I picked them up, I observed the title of one of them, The Origin of
Tree Worship, and it struck me that the fellow must be some poor bibliophile,
who, either as a trade or as a hobby, was a collector of obscure volumes.  I
endeavoured to apologize for the accident, but it was evident that these books
which I had so unfortunately maltreated were very precious objects in the eyes
of their owner.  With a snarl of contempt he turned upon his heel, and I saw
his curved back and white side-whiskers disappear among the throng.
     My observations of No. 427 Park Lane did little to clear up the problem
in which I was interested.  The house was separated from the street by a low
wall and railing, the whole not more than five feet high.  It was perfectly
easy, therefore, for anyone to get into the garden, but the window was
entirely inaccessible, since there was no waterpipe or anything which could
help the most active man to climb it.  More puzzled than ever, I retraced my
steps to Kensington.  I had not been in my study five minutes when the maid
entered to say that a person desired to see me.  To my astonishment it was
none other than my strange old book collector, his sharp, wizened face peering
out from a frame of white hair, and his precious volumes, a dozen of them at
least, wedged under his right arm.
     "You're surprised to see me, sir," said he, in a strange, croaking voice.
     I acknowledged that I was.
     "Well, I've a conscience, sir, and when I chanced to see you go into this
house, as I came hobbling after you, I thought to myself, I'll just step in
and see that kind gentleman, and tell him that if I was a bit gruff in my
manner there was not any harm meant, and that I am much obliged to him for
picking up my books."
     "You make too much of a trifle," said I.  "May I ask how you knew who I
was?"
     "Well, sir, if it isn't too great a liberty, I am a neighbour of yours,
for you'll find my little bookshop at the corner of Church Street, and very
happy to see you, I am sure.  Maybe you collect yourself, sir.  Here's British
Birds, and Catullus, and The Holy War--a bargain, every one of them.  With
five volumes you could just fill that gap on that second shelf.  It looks
untidy, does it not, sir?"
     I moved my head to look at the cabinet behind me.  When I turned again,
Sherlock Holmes was standing smiling at me across my study table.  I rose to
my feet, stared at him for some seconds in utter amazement, and then it
appears that I must have fainted for the first and the last time in my life.
Certainly a gray mist swirled before my eyes, and when it cleared I found my
collar-ends undone and the tingling after-taste of brandy upon my lips.
Holmes was bending over my chair, his flask in his hand.
     "My dear Watson," said the well-remembered voice, "I owe you a thousand
apologies.  I had no idea that you would be so affected."
     I gripped him by the arms.
     "Holmes!" I cried.  "Is it really you?  Can it indeed be that you are
alive?  Is it possible that you succeeded in climbing out of that awful
abyss?"
     "Wait a moment," said he.  "Are you sure that you are really fit to
discuss things?  I have given you a serious shock by my unnecessarily dramatic
reappearance."
     "I am all right, but indeed, Holmes, I can hardly believe my eyes.  Good
heavens!  to think that you--you of all men--should be standing in my study."
Again I gripped him by the sleeve, and felt the thin, sinewy arm beneath it.
"Well, you're not a spirit, anyhow," said I.  "My dear chap, I'm overjoyed to
see you.  Sit down, and tell me how you came alive out of that dreadful
chasm."
     He sat opposite to me, and lit a cigarette in his old, nonchalant manner.
He was dressed in the seedy frockcoat of the book merchant, but the rest of
that individual lay in a pile of white hair and old books upon the table.
Holmes looked even thinner and keener than of old, but there was a dead-white
tinge in his aquiline face which told me that his life recently had not been a
healthy one.
     "I am glad to stretch myself, Watson," said he.  "It is no joke when a
tall man has to take a foot off his stature for several hours on end.  Now, my
dear fellow, in the matter of these explanations, we have, if I may ask for
your cooperation, a hard and dangerous night's work in front of us.  Perhaps
it would be better if I gave you an account of the whole situation when that
work is finished."
     "I am full of curiosity.  I should much prefer to hear now."
     "You'll come with me to-night?"
     "When you like and where you like."
     "This is, indeed, like the old days.  We shall have time for a mouthful
of dinner before we need go.  Well, then, about that chasm.  I had no serious
difficulty in getting out of it, for the very simple reason that I never was
in it."
     "You never were in it?"
     "No, Watson, I never was in it.  My note to you was absolutely genuine.
I had little doubt that I had come to the end of my career when I perceived
the somewhat sinister figure of the late Professor Moriarty standing upon the
narrow pathway which led to safety.  I read an inexorable purpose in his gray
eyes.  I exchanged some remarks with him, therefore, and obtained his
courteous permission to write the short note which you afterwards received.  I
left it with my cigarette-box and my stick, and I walked along the pathway,
Moriarty still at my heels.  When I reached the end I stood at bay.  He drew
no weapon, but he rushed at me and threw his long arms around me.  He knew
that his own game was up, and was only anxious to revenge himself upon me.  We
tottered together upon the brink of the fall.  I have some knowledge, however,
of baritsu, or the Japanese system of wrestling, which has more than once been
very useful to me.  I slipped through his grip, and he with a horrible scream
kicked madly for a few seconds, and clawed the air with both his hands.  But
for all his efforts he could not get his balance, and over he went.  With my
face over the brink, I saw him fall for a long way.  Then he struck a rock,
bounded off, and splashed into the water."
     I listened with amazement to this explanation, which Holmes delivered
between the puffs of his cigarette.
     "But the tracks!" I cried.  "I saw, with my own eyes, that two went down
the path and none returned.
     "It came about in this way.  The instant that the Professor had
disappeared, it struck me what a really extraordinarily lucky chance Fate had
placed in my way.  I knew that Moriarty was not the only man who had sworn my
death.  There were at least three others whose desire for vengeance upon me
would only be increased by the death of their leader.  They were all most
dangerous men.  One or other would certainly get me.  On the other hand, if
all the world was convinced that I was dead they would take liberties, these
men, they would soon lay themselves open, and sooner or later I could destroy
them.  Then it would be time for me to announce that I was still in the land
of the living.  So rapidly does the brain act that I believe I had thought
this all out before Professor Moriarty had reached the bottom of the
Reichenbach Fall.
     "I stood up and examined the rocky wall behind me.  In your picturesque
account of the matter, which I read with great interest some months later, you
assert that the wall was sheer.  That was not literally true.  A few small
footholds presented themselves, and there was some indication of a ledge.  The
cliff is so high that to climb it all was an obvious impossibility, and it was
equally impossible to make my way along the wet path without leaving some
tracks.  I might, it is true, have reversed my boots, as I have done on
similar occasions, but the sight of three sets of tracks in one direction
would certainly have suggested a deception.  On the whole, then, it was best
that I should risk the climb.  It was not a pleasant business, Watson.  The
fall roared beneath me.  I am not a fanciful person, but I give you my word
that I seemed to hear Moriarty's voice screaming at me out of the abyss.  A
mistake would have been fatal.  More than once, as tufts of grass came out in
my hand or my foot slipped in the wet notches of the rock, I thought that I
was gone.  But I struggled upward, and at last I reached a ledge several feet
deep and covered with soft green moss, where I could lie unseen, in the most
perfect comfort.  There I was stretched, when you, my dear Watson, and all
your following were investigating in the most sympathetic and inefficient
manner the circumstances of my death.
     "At last, when you had all formed your inevitable and totally erroneous
conclusions, you departed for the hotel, and I was left alone.  I had imagined
that I had reached the end of my adventures, but a very unexpected occurrence
showed me that there were surprises still in store for me.  A huge rock,
falling from above, boomed past me, struck the path, and bounded over into the
chasm.  For an instant I thought that it was an accident, but a moment later,
looking up, I saw a man's head against the darkening sky, and another stone
struck the very ledge upon which I was stretched, within a foot of my head.
Of course, the meaning of this was obvious.  Moriarty had not been alone.  A
confederate--and even that one glance had told me how dangerous a man that
confederate was--had kept guard while the Professor had attacked me.  From a
distance, unseen by me, he had been a witness of his friend's death and of my
escape.  He had waited, and then making his way round to the top of the cliff,
he had endeavoured to succeed where his comrade had failed.
     "I did not take long to think about it, Watson.  Again I saw that grim
face look over the cliff, and I knew that it was the precursor of another
stone.  I scrambled down on to the path.  I don't think I could have done it
in cold blood.  It was a hundred times more difficult than getting up.  But I
had no time to think of the danger, for another stone sang past me as I hung
by my hands from the edge of the ledge.  Halfway down I slipped, but, by the
blessing of God, I landed, torn and bleeding, upon the path.  I took to my
heels, did ten miles over the mountains in the darkness, and a week later I
found myself in Florence, with the certainty that no one in the world knew
what had become of me.
     "I had only one confidant--my brother Mycroft.  I owe you many apologies,
my dear Watson, but it was all-important that it should be thought I was dead,
and it is quite certain that you would not have written so convincing an
account of my unhappy end had you not yourself thought that it was true.
Several times during the last three years I have taken up my pen to write to
you, but always I feared lest your affectionate regard for me should tempt you
to some indiscretion which would betray my secret.  For that reason I turned
away from you this evening when you upset my books, for I was in danger at the
time, and any show of surprise and emotion upon your part might have drawn
attention to my identity and led to the most deplorable and irreparable
results.  As to Mycroft, I had to confide in him in order to obtain the money
which I needed.  The course of events in London did not run so well as I had
hoped, for the trial of the Moriarty gang left two of its most dangerous
members, my own most vindictive enemies, at liberty.  I travelled for two
years in Tibet, therefore, and amused myself by visiting Lhassa, and spending
some days with the head lama.  You may have read of the remarkable
explorations of a Norwegian named Sigerson, but I am sure that it never
occurred to you that you were receiving news of your friend.  I then passed
through Persia, looked in at Mecca, and paid a short but interesting visit to
the Khalifa at Khartoum, the results of which I have communicated to the
Foreign Office.  Returning to France, I spent some months in a research into
the coal-tar derivatives, which I conducted in a laboratory at Montpellier, in
the south of France.  Having concluded this to my satisfaction and learning
that only one of my enemies was now left in London, I was about to return when
my movements were hastened by the news of this very remarkable Park Lane
Mystery, which not only appealed to me by its own merits, but which seemed to
offer some most peculiar personal opportunities.  I came over at once to
London, called in my own person at Baker Street, threw Mrs. Hudson into
violent hysterics, and found that Mycroft had preserved my rooms and my papers
exactly as they had always been.  So it was, my dear Watson, that at two
o'clock to-day I found myself in my old armchair in my own old room, and only
wishing that I could have seen my old friend Watson in the other chair which
he has so often adorned."
     Such was the remarkable narrative to which I listened on that April
evening --a narrative which would have been utterly incredible to me had it
not been confirmed by the actual sight of the tall, spare figure and the keen,
eager face, which I had never thought to see again.  In some manner he had
learned of my own sad bereavement, and his sympathy was shown in his manner
rather than in his words.  "Work is the best antidote to sorrow, my dear
Watson," said he; "and I have a piece of work for us both to-night which, if
we can bring it to a successful conclusion, will in itself justify a man's
life on this planet."  In vain I begged him to tell me more.  "You will hear
and see enough before morning," he answered.  "We have three years of the past
to discuss.  Let that suffice until half-past nine, when we start upon the
notable adventure of the empty house."
     It was indeed like old times when, at that hour, I found myself seated
beside him in a hansom, my revolver in my pocket, and the thrill of adventure
in my heart.  Holmes was cold and stern and silent.  As the gleam of the
street-lamps flashed upon his austere features, I saw that his brows were
drawn down in thought and his thin lips compressed.  I knew not what wild
beast we were about to hunt down in the dark jungle of criminal London, but I
was well assured, from the bearing of this master huntsman, that the adventure
was a most grave one--while the sardonic smile which occasionally broke
through his ascetic gloom boded little good for the object of our quest.
     I had imagined that we were bound for Baker Street, but Holmes stopped
the cab at the corner of Cavendish Square.  I observed that as he stepped out
he gave a most searching glance to right and left, and at every subsequent
street corner he took the utmost pains to assure that he was not followed.
Our route was certainly a singular one.  Holmes's knowledge of the byways of
London was extraordinary, and on this occasion he passed rapidly and with an
assured step through a network of mews and stables, the very existence of
which I had never known.  We emerged at last into a small road, lined with
old, gloomy houses, which led us into Manchester Street, and so to Blandford
Street.  Here he turned swiftly down a narrow passage, passed through a wooden
gate into a deserted yard, and then opened with a key the back door of a
house.  We entered together, and he closed it behind us.
     The place was pitch dark, but it was evident to me that it was an empty
house.  Our feet creaked and crackled over the bare planking, and my
outstretched hand touched a wall from which the paper was hanging in ribbons.
Holmes's cold, thin fingers closed round my wrist and led me forward down a
long hall, until I dimly saw the murky fanlight over the door.  Here Holmes
turned suddenly to the right, and we found ourselves in a large, square, empty
room, heavily shadowed in the corners, but faintly lit in the centre from the
lights of the street beyond.  There was no lamp near, and the window was thick
with dust, so that we could only just discern each other's figures within.  My
companion put his hand upon my shoulder and his lips close to my ear.
     "Do you know where we are?" he whispered.
     "Surely that is Baker Street," I answered, staring through the dim
window.
     "Exactly.  We are in Camden House, which stands opposite to our own old
quarters."
     "But why are we here?"
     "Because it commands so excellent a view of that picturesque pile.  Might
I trouble you, my dear Watson, to draw a little nearer to the window, taking
every precaution not to show yourself, and then to look up at our old
rooms--the starting-point of so many of your little fairy-tales?  We will see
if my three years of absence have entirely taken away my power to surprise
you."
     I crept forward and looked across at the familiar window.  As my eyes
fell upon it, I gave a gasp and a cry of amazement.  The blind was down, and a
strong light was burning in the room.  The shadow of a man who was seated in a
chair within was thrown in hard, black outline upon the luminous screen of the
window.  There was no mistaking the poise of the head, the squareness of the
shoulders, the sharpness of the features.  The face was turned half-round, and
the effect was that of one of those black silhouettes which our grandparents
loved to frame.  It was a perfect reproduction of Holmes.  So amazed was I
that I threw out my hand to make sure that the man himself was standing beside
me.  He was quivering with silent laughter.
     "Well?" said he.
     "Good heavens!" I cried.  "It is marvellous."
     "I trust that age doth not wither nor custom stale my infinite variety,"
said he, and I recognized in his voice the joy and pride which the artist
takes in his own creation.  "It really is rather like me, is it not?"
     "I should be prepared to swear that it was you."
     "The credit of the execution is due to Monsieur Oscar Meunier, of
Grenoble, who spent some days in doing the moulding.  It is a bust in wax.
The rest I arranged myself during my visit to Baker Street this afternoon."
     "But why?"
     "Because, my dear Watson, I had the strongest possible reason for wishing
certain people to think that I was there when I was really elsewhere."
     "And you thought the rooms were watched?"
     "I knew that they were watched."
     "By whom?"
     "By my old enemies, Watson.  By the charming society whose leader lies in
the Reichenbach Fall.  You must remember that they knew, and only they knew,
that I was still alive.  Sooner or later they believed that I should come back
to my rooms.  They watched them continuously, and this morning they saw me
arrive."
     "How do you know?"
     "Because I recognized their sentinel when I glanced out of my window.  He
is a harmless enough fellow, Parker by name, a garroter by trade, and a
remarkable performer upon the jew's-harp.  I cared nothing for him.  But I
cared a great deal for the much more formidable person who was behind him, the
bosom friend of Moriarty, the man who dropped the rocks over the cliff, the
most cunning and dangerous criminal in London.  That is the man who is after
me to-night, Watson, and that is the man who is quite unaware that we are
after him."
     My friend's plans were gradually revealing themselves.  From this
convenient retreat, the watchers were being watched and the trackers tracked.
That angular shadow up yonder was the bait, and we were the hunters.  In
silence we stood together in the darkness and watched the hurrying figures who
passed and repassed in front of us.  Holmes was silent and motionless; but I
could tell that he was keenly alert, and that his eyes were fixed intently
upon the stream of passers-by.  It was a bleak and boisterous night, and the
wind whistled shrilly down the long street.  Many people were moving to and
fro, most of them muffled in their coats and cravats.  Once or twice it seemed
to me that I had seen the same figure before, and I especially noticed two men
who appeared to be sheltering themselves from the wind in the doorway of a
house some distance up the street.  I tried to draw my companion's attention
to them; but he gave a little ejaculation of impatience, and continued to
stare into the street.  More than once he fidgeted with his feet and tapped
rapidly with his fingers upon the wall.  It was evident to me that he was
becoming uneasy, and that his plans were not working out altogether as he had
hoped.  At last, as midnight approached and the street gradually cleared, he
paced up and down the room in uncontrollable agitation.  I was about to make
some remark to him, when I raised my eyes to the lighted window, and again
experienced almost as great a surprise as before.  I clutched Holmes's arm,
and pointed upward.
     "The shadow has moved!" I cried.
     It was indeed no longer the profile, but the back, which was turned
towards us.
     Three years had certainly not smoothed the asperities of his temper or
his impatience with a less active intelligence than his own.
     "Of course it has moved," said he.  "Am I such a farcical bungler,
Watson, that I should erect an obvious dummy, and expect that some of the
sharpest men in Europe would be deceived by it?  We have been in this room two
hours, and Mrs. Hudson has made some change in that figure eight times, or
once in every quarter of an hour.  She works it from the front, so that her
shadow may never be seen.  Ah!"  He drew in his breath with a shrill, excited
intake.  In the dim light I saw his head thrown forward, his whole attitude
rigid with attention.  Outside the street was absolutely deserted.  Those two
men might still be crouching in the doorway, but I could no longer see them.
All was still and dark, save only that brilliant yellow screen in front of us
with the black figure outlined upon its centre.  Again in the utter silence I
heard that thin, sibilant note which spoke of intense suppressed excitement.
An instant later he pulled me back into the blackest corner of the room, and I
felt his warning hand upon my lips.  The fingers which clutched me were
quivering.  Never had I known my friend more moved, and yet the dark street
still stretched lonely and motionless before us.
     But suddenly I was aware of that which his keener senses had already
distinguished.  A low, stealthy sound came to my ears, not from the direction
of Baker Street, but from the back of the very house in which we lay
concealed.  A door opened and shut.  An instant later steps crept down the
passage--steps which were meant to be silent, but which reverberated harshly
through the empty house.  Holmes crouched back against the wall, and I did the
same, my hand closing upon the handle of my revolver.  Peering through the
gloom, I saw the vague outline of a man, a shade blacker than the blackness of
the open door.  He stood for an instant, and then he crept forward, crouching,
menacing, into the room.  He was within three yards of us, this sinister
figure, and I had braced myself to meet his spring, before I realized that he
had no idea of our presence.  He passed close beside us, stole over to the
window, and very softly and noiselessly raised it for half a foot.  As he sank
to the level of this opening, the light of the street, no longer dimmed by the
dusty glass, fell full upon his face.  The man seemed to be beside himself
with excitement.  His two eyes shone like stars, and his features were working
convulsively.  He was an elderly man, with a thin, projecting nose, a high,
bald forehead, and a huge grizzled moustache.  An opera hat was pushed to the
back of his head, and an evening dress shirt-front gleamed out through his
open overcoat.  His face was gaunt and swarthy, scored with deep, savage
lines.  In his hand he carried what appeared to be a stick, but as he laid it
down upon the floor it gave a metallic clang.  Then from the pocket of his
overcoat he drew a bulky object, and he busied himself in some task which
ended with a loud, sharp click, as if a spring or bolt had fallen into its
place.  Still kneeling upon the floor he bent forward and threw all his weight
and strength upon some lever, with the result that there came a long,
whirling, grinding noise, ending once more in a powerful click.  He
straightened himself then, and I saw that what he held in his hand was a sort
of gun, with a curiously misshapen butt.  He opened it at the breech, put
something in, and snapped the breech-lock.  Then, crouching down, he rested
the end of the barrel upon the ledge of the open window, and I saw his long
moustache droop over the stock and his eye gleam as it peered along the
sights.  I heard a little sigh of satisfaction as he cuddled the butt into his
shoulder, and saw that amazing target, the black man on the yellow ground,
standing clear at the end of his foresight.  For an instant he was rigid and
motionless.  Then his finger tightened on the trigger.  There was a strange,
loud whiz and a long, silvery tinkle of broken glass.  At that instant Holmes
sprang like a tiger on to the marksman's back, and hurled him flat upon his
face.  He was up again in a moment, and with convulsive strength he seized
Holmes by the throat, but I struck him on the head with the butt of my
revolver, and he dropped again upon the floor.  I fell upon him, and as I held
him my comrade blew a shrill call upon a whistle.  There was the clatter of
running feet upon the pavement, and two policemen in uniform, with one
plain-clothes detective, rushed through the front entrance and into the room.
     "That you, Lestrade?" said Holmes.
     "Yes, Mr. Holmes.  I took the job myself.  It's good to see you back in
London, sir."
     "I think you want a little unofficial help.  Three undetected murders in
one year won't do, Lestrade.  But you handled the Molesey Mystery with less
than your usual--that's to say, you handled it fairly well."
     We had all risen to our feet, our prisoner breathing hard, with a
stalwart constable on each side of him.  Already a few loiterers had begun to
collect in the street.  Holmes stepped up to the window, closed it, and
dropped the blinds.  Lestrade had produced two candles, and the policemen had
uncovered their lanterns.  I was able at last to have a good look at our
prisoner.
     It was a tremendously virile and yet sinister face which was turned
towards us.  With the brow of a philosopher above and the jaw of a sensualist
below, the man must have started with great capacities for good or for evil.
But one could not look upon his cruel blue eyes, with their drooping, cynical
lids, or upon the fierce, aggressive nose and the threatening, deep-lined
brow, without reading Nature's plainest danger-signals.  He took no heed of
any of us, but his eyes were fixed upon Holmes's face with an expression in
which hatred and amazement were equally blended.  "You fiend!" he kept on
muttering.  "You clever, clever fiend!"
     "Ah, Colonel!" said Holmes, arranging his rumpled collar.  "'Journeys end
in lovers' meetings,' as the old play says.  I don't think I have had the
pleasure of seeing you since you favoured me with those attentions as I lay on
the ledge above the Reichenbach Fall."
     The colonel still stared at my friend like a man in a trance.  "You
cunning, cunning fiend!" was all that he could say.
     "I have not introduced you yet," said Holmes.  "This, gentlemen, is
Colonel Sebastian Moran, once of Her Majesty's Indian Army, and the best
heavy-game shot that our Eastern Empire has ever produced.  I believe I am
correct, Colonel, in saying that your bag of tigers still remains unrivalled?"
     The fierce old man said nothing, but still glared at my companion.  With
his savage eyes and bristling moustache he was wonderfully like a tiger
himself.
     "I wonder that my very simple stratagem could deceive so old a shikari,"
said Holmes.  "It must be very familiar to you.  Have you not tethered a young
kid under a tree, lain above it with your rifle, and waited for the bait to
bring up your tiger?  This empty house is my tree, and you are my tiger.  You
have possibly had other guns in reserve in case there should be several
tigers, or in the unlikely supposition of your own aim failing you.  These,"
he pointed around, "are my other guns.  The parallel is exact."
     Colonel Moran sprang forward with a snarl of rage, but the constables
dragged him back.  The fury upon his face was terrible to look at.
     "I confess that you had one small surprise for me," said Holmes.  "I did
not anticipate that you would yourself make use of this empty house and this
convenient front window.  I had imagined you as operating from the street,
where my friend Lestrade and his merry men were awaiting you.  With that
exception, all has gone as I expected."
     Colonel Moran turned to the official detective.
     "You may or may not have just cause for arresting me," said he, "but at
least there can be no reason why I should submit to the gibes of this person.
If I am in the hands of the law, let things be done in a legal way."
     "Well, that's reasonable enough," said Lestrade.  "Nothing further you
have to say, Mr. Holmes, before we go?"
     Holmes had picked up the powerful air-gun from the floor, and was
examining its mechanism.
     "An admirable and unique weapon," said he, "noiseless and of tremendous
power:  I knew Von Herder, the blind German mechanic, who constructed it to
the order of the late Professor Moriarty.  For years I have been aware of its
existence, though I have never before had the opportunity of handling it.  I
commend it very specially to your attention, Lestrade, and also the bullets
which fit it."
     "You can trust us to look after that, Mr. Holmes," said Lestrade, as the
whole party moved towards the door.  "Anything further to say?"
     "Only to ask what charge you intend to prefer?"
     "What charge, sir?  Why, of course, the attempted murder of Mr. Sherlock
Holmes."
     "Not so, Lestrade.  I do not propose to appear in the matter at all.  To
you, and to you only, belongs the credit of the remarkable arrest which you
have effected.  Yes, Lestrade, I congratulate you!  With your usual happy
mixture of cunning and audacity, you have got him."
     "Got him!  Got whom, Mr. Holmes?"
     "The man that the whole force has been seeking in vain--Colonel Sebastian
Moran, who shot the Honourable Ronald Adair with an expanding bullet from an
air-gun through the open window of the second-floor front of No. 427 Park
Lane, upon the thirtieth of last month.  That's the charge, Lestrade.  And
now, Watson, if you can endure the draught from a broken window, I think that
half an hour in my study over a cigar may afford you some profitable
amusement."

     Our old chambers had been left unchanged through the supervision of
Mycroft Holmes and the immediate care of Mrs. Hudson.  As I entered I saw, it
is true, an unwonted tidiness, but the old landmarks were all in their place.
There were the chemical corner and the acid-stained, deal-topped table.  There
upon a shelf was the row of formidable scrap-books and books of reference
which many of our fellow-citizens would have been so glad to burn.  The
diagrams, the violin-case, and the pipe-rack--even the Persian slipper which
contained the tobacco--all met my eyes as I glanced round me.  There were two
occupants of the room--one, Mrs. Hudson, who beamed upon us both as we
entered--the other, the strange dummy which had played so important a part in
the evening's adventures.  It was a wax-coloured model of my friend, so
admirably done that it was a perfect facsimile.  It stood on a small pedestal
table with an old dressing-gown of Holmes's so draped round it that the
illusion from the street was absolutely perfect.
     "I hope you observed all precautions, Mrs. Hudson?" said Holmes.
     "I went to it on my knees, sir, just as you told me."
     "Excellent.  You carried the thing out very well.  Did you observe where
the bullet went?"
     "Yes, sir.  I'm afraid it has spoilt your beautiful bust, for it passed
right through the head and flattened itself on the wall.  I picked it up from
the carpet.  Here it is!"
     Holmes held it out to me.  "A soft revolver bullet, as you perceive,
Watson.  There's genius in that, for who would expect to find such a thing
fired from an air-gun?  All right, Mrs. Hudson.  I am much obliged for your
assistance.  And now, Watson, let me see you in your old seat once more, for
there are several points which I should like to discuss with you."
     He had thrown off the seedy frockcoat, and now he was the Holmes of old
in the mouse-coloured dressing-gown which he took from his effigy.
     "The old shikari's nerves have not lost their steadiness, nor his eyes
their keenness," said he, with a laugh, as he inspected the shattered forehead
of his bust.
     "Plumb in the middle of the back of the head and smack through the brain.
He was the best shot in India, and I expect that there are few better in
London.  Have you heard the name?"
     "No, I have not."
     "Well, well, such is fame!  But, then, if I remember right, you had not
heard the name of Professor James Moriarty, who had one of the great brains of
the century.  Just give me down my index of biographies from the shelf."
     He turned over the pages lazily, leaning back in his chair and blowing
great clouds from his cigar.
     "My collection of M's is a fine one," said he.  "Moriarty himself is
enough to make any letter illustrious, and here is Morgan the poisoner, and
Merridew of abominable memory, and Mathews, who knocked out my left canine in
the waiting-room at Charing Cross, and, finally, here is our friend of
to-night."
     He handed over the book, and I read:

               Moran, Sebastian, Colonel.  Unemployed.  Formerly 1st Bangalore
          Pioneers.  Born London, 1840.  Son of Sir Augustus Moran, C. B.,
          once British Minister to Persia.  Educated Eton and Oxford.  Served
          in Jowaki Campaign, Afghan Campaign, Charasiab (despatches),
          Sherpur, and Cabul.  Author of Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas
          (1881); Three Months in the Jungle (1884).  Address:  Conduit
          Street.  Clubs:  The Anglo-Indian, the Tankerville, the Bagatelle
          Card Club.

     On the margin was written, in Holmes's precise hand:

               The second most dangerous man in London.

     "This is astonishing," said I, as I handed back the volume.  "The man's
career is that of an honourable soldier."
     "It is true," Holmes answered.  "Up to a certain point he did well.  He
was always a man of iron nerve, and the story is still told in India how he
crawled down a drain after a wounded man-eating tiger.  There are some trees,
Watson, which grow to a certain height, and then suddenly develop some
unsightly eccentricity.  You will see it often in humans.  I have a theory
that the individual represents in his development the whole procession of his
ancestors, and that such a sudden turn to good or evil stands for some strong
influence which came into the line of his pedigree.  The person becomes, as it
were, the epitome of the history of his own family."
     "It is surely rather fanciful."
     "Well, I don't insist upon it.  Whatever the cause, Colonel Moran began
to go wrong.  Without any open scandal, he still made India too hot to hold
him.  He retired, came to London, and again acquired an evil name.  It was at
this time that he was sought out by Professor Moriarty, to whom for a time he
was chief of the staff.  Moriarty supplied him liberally with money, and used
him only in one or two very high-class jobs, which no ordinary criminal could
have undertaken.  You may have some recollection of the death of Mrs. Stewart,
of Lauder, in 1887.  Not?  Well, I am sure Moran was at the bottom of it, but
nothing could be proved.  So cleverly was the colonel concealed that, even
when the Moriarty gang was broken up, we could not incriminate him.  You
remember at that date, when I called upon you in your rooms, how I put up the
shutters for fear of air-guns?  No doubt you thought me fanciful.  I knew
exactly what I was doing, for I knew of the existence of this remarkable gun,
and I knew also that one of the best shots in the world would be behind it.
When we were in Switzerland he followed us with Moriarty, and it was
undoubtedly he who gave me that evil five minutes on the Reichenbach ledge.
     "You may think that I read the papers with some attention during my
sojourn in France, on the look-out for any chance of laying him by the heels.
So long as he was free in London, my life would really not have been worth
living.  Night and day the shadow would have been over me, and sooner or later
his chance must have come.  What could I do?  I could not shoot him at sight,
or I should myself be in the dock.  There was no use appealing to a
magistrate.  They cannot interfere on the strength of what would appear to
them to be a wild suspicion.  So I could do nothing.  But I watched the
criminal news, knowing that sooner or later I should get him.  Then came the
death of this Ronald Adair.  My chance had come at last.  Knowing what I did,
was it not certain that Colonel Moran had done it?  He had played cards with
the lad, he had followed him home from the club, he had shot him through the
open window.  There was not a doubt of it.  The bullets alone are enough to
put his head in a noose.  I came over at once.  I was seen by the sentinel,
who would, I knew, direct the colonel's attention to my presence.  He could
not fail to connect my sudden return with his crime, and to be terribly
alarmed. I was sure that he would make an attempt to get me out of the way at
once, and would bring round his murderous weapon for that purpose.  I left him
an excellent mark in the window, and, having warned the police that they might
be needed--by the way, Watson, you spotted their presence in that doorway with
unerring accuracy--I took up what seemed to me to be a judicious post for
observation, never dreaming that he would choose the same spot for his attack.
Now, my dear Watson, does anything remain for me to explain?"
     "Yes," said I.  "You have not made it clear what was Colonel Moran's
motive in murdering the Honourable Ronald Adair?"
     "Ah!  my dear Watson, there we come into those realms of conjecture,
where the most logical mind may be at fault.  Each may form his own hypothesis
upon the present evidence, and yours is as likely to be correct as mine."
     "You have formed one, then?"
     "I think that it is not difficult to explain the facts.  It came out in
evidence that Colonel Moran and young Adair had, between them, won a
considerable amount of money.  Now, Moran undoubtedly played foul--of that I
have long been aware.  I believe that on the day of the murder Adair had
discovered that Moran was cheating.  Very likely he had spoken to him
privately, and had threatened to expose him unless he voluntarily resigned his
membership of the club, and promised not to play cards again.  It is unlikely
that a youngster like Adair would at once make a hideous scandal by exposing a
well known man so much older than himself.  Probably he acted as I suggest.
The exclusion from his clubs would mean ruin to Moran, who lived by his
ill-gotten card-gains.  He therefore murdered Adair, who at the time was
endeavouring to work out how much money he should himself return, since he
could not profit by his partner's foul play.  He locked the door lest the
ladies should surprise him and insist upon knowing what he was doing with
these names and coins.  Will it pass?"
     "I have no doubt that you have hit upon the truth."
     "It will be verified or disproved at the trial.  Meanwhile, come what
may, Colonel Moran will trouble us no more.  The famous air-gun of Von Herder
will embellish the Scotland Yard Museum, and once again Mr. Sherlock Holmes is
free to devote his life to examining those interesting little problems which
the complex life of London so plentifully presents."