Sherlock Holmes complete collection by sir arthur conan doyle

THE SIGN OF FOUR: Chapter 5 THE TRAGEDY OF PONDICHERRY LODGE

IT WAS nearly eleven o'clock when we reached this final stage of ournight's adventures. We had left the damp fog of the great city behind us,and the night was fairly fine. A warm wind blew from the westward, andheavy clouds moved slowly across the sky, with half a moon peepingoccasionally through the rifts. It was clear enough to see for somedistance, but Thaddeus Sholto took down one of the side-lamps from thecarriage to give us a better light upon our way.Pondicherry Lodge stood in its own grounds and was girt round with avery high stone wall topped with broken glass. A single narrow ironclamped door formed the only means of entrance. On this our guideknocked with a peculiar postman-like rat-tat."Who is there?" cried a gruff voice from within."It is I, McMurdo. You surely know my knock by this time."There was a grumbling sound and a clanking and jarring of keys. Thedoor swung heavily back, and a short, deep-chested man stood in theopening, with the yellow light of the lantern shining upon his protrudedface and twinkling, distrustful eyes."That you, Mr. Thaddeus? But who are the others? I had no ordersabout them from the master.""No, McMurdo? You surprise me! I told my brother last night that Ishould bring some friends.""He hain't been out o' his rooms to-day, Mr. Thaddeus, and I have noorders. You know very well that I must stick to regulations. I can let youin, but your friends they must just stop where they are."This was an unexpected obstacle. Thaddeus Sholto looked about him ina perplexed and helpless manner."This is too bad of you, McMurdo!" he said. "If I guarantee them, thatis enough for you. There is the young lady, too. She cannot wait on thepublic road at this hour.""Very sorry, Mr. Thaddeus," said the porter inexorably. "Folk may befriends o' yours, and yet no friend o' the master's. He pays me well to domy duty, and my duty I'll do. I don't know none o' your friends.""Oh, yes you do, McMurdo," cried Sherlock Holmes genially. "I don'tthink you can have forgotten me. Don't you remember that amateur whofought three rounds with you at Alison's rooms on the night of yourbenefit four years back?""Not Mr. Sherlock Holmes!" roared the prize-fighter. "God's truth!how could I have mistook you? If instead o' standin' there so quiet youhad just stepped up and given me that cross-hit of yours under the jaw, I'dha' known you without a question. Ah, you're one that has wasted yourgifts, you have! You might have aimed high, if you had joined the fancy." "You see, Watson, if all else fails me, I have still one of the scientificprofessions open to me," said Holmes, laughing. "Our friend won't keepus out in the cold now, I am sure.""In you come, sir, in you come-you and your friends," he answered."Very sorry, [107] Mr. Thaddeus, but orders are very strict. Had to becertain of your friends before I let them in."Inside, a gravel path wound through desolate grounds to a huge clumpof a house, square and prosaic, all plunged in shadow save where amoonbeam struck one corner and glimmered in a garret window. The vastsize of the building, with its gloom and its deathly silence, struck a chillto the heart. Even Thaddeus Sholto seemed ill at ease, and the lanternquivered and rattled in his hand."I cannot understand it," he said. "There must be some mistake. Idistinctly told Bartholomew that we should be here, and yet there is nolight in his window. I do not know what to make of it.""Does he always guard the premises in this way?" asked Holmes."Yes; he has followed my father's custom. He was the favourite sonyou know, and I sometimes think that my father may have told him morethan he ever told me. That is Bartholomew's window up there where themoonshine strikes. It is quite bright, but there is no light from within, Ithink.""None," said Holmes. "But I see the glint of a light in that little windowbeside the door.""Ah, that is the housekeeper's room. That is where old Mrs. Bernstonesits. She can tell us all about it. But perhaps you would not mind waitinghere for a minute or two, for if we all go in together, and she has had noword of our coming, she may be alarmed. But, hush! what is that?"He held up the lantern, and his hand shook until the circles of lightflickered and wavered all round us. Miss Morstan seized my wrist, andwe all stood, with thumping hearts, straining our ears. From the greatblack house there sounded through the silent night the saddest and mostpitiful of sounds-the shrill, broken whimpering of a frightened woman."It is Mrs. Bernstone," said Sholto. "She is the only woman in thehouse. Wait here. I shall be back in a moment."He hurried for the door and knocked in his peculiar way. We could seea tall old woman admit him and sway with pleasure at the very sight ofhim."Oh, Mr. Thaddeus, sir, I am so glad you have come! I am so glad youhave come, Mr. Thaddeus, sir!"We heard her reiterated rejoicings until the door was closed and hervoice died away into a muffled monotone.Our guide had left us the lantern. Holmes swung it slowly round andpeered keenly at the house and at the great rubbish-heaps which cumberedthe grounds. Miss Morstan and I stood together, and her hand was inmine. A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two, who hadnever seen each other before that day, between whom no word or evenlook of affection had ever passed, and yet now in an hour of trouble ourhands instinctively sought for each other. I have marvelled at it since, butat the time it seemed the most natural thing that I should go out to her so, and, as she has often told me, there was in her also the instinct to turn tome for comfort and protection. So we stood hand in hand like twochildren, and there was peace in our hearts for all the dark things thatsurrounded us."What a strange place!" she said, looking round."It looks as though all the moles in England had been let loose in it. Ihave seen something of the sort on the side of a hill near Ballarat, wherethe prospectors had been at work."[108] "And from the same cause," said Holmes. "These are the traces ofthe treasure-seekers. You must remember that they were six years lookingfor it. No wonder that the grounds look like a gravel-pit."At that moment the door of the house burst open, and Thaddeus Sholtocame running out, with his hands thrown forward and terror in his eyes."There is something amiss with Bartholomew!" he cried. "I amfrightened! My nerves cannot stand it."He was, indeed, half blubbering with fear, and his twitching, feebleface peeping out from the great astrakhan collar had the helpless,appealing expression of a terrified child."Come into the house," said Holmes in his crisp, firm way."Yes, do!" pleaded Thaddeus Sholto. "I really do not feel equal togiving directions."We all followed him into the housekeeper's room, which stood uponthe left-hand side of the passage. The old woman was pacing up anddown with a scared look and restless, picking fingers, but the sight ofMiss Morstan appeared to have a soothing effect upon her."God bless your sweet, calm face!" she cried with a hysterical sob. "Itdoes me good to see you. Oh, but I have been sorely tried this day!"Our companion patted her thin, work-worn hand and murmured somefew words of kindly, womanly comfort which brought the colour backinto the other's bloodless cheeks."Master has locked himself in and will not answer me," she explained."All day I have waited to hear from him, for he often likes to be alone;but an hour ago I feared that something was amiss, so I went up andpeeped through the keyhole. You must go up, Mr. Thaddeus-you must goup and look for yourself. I have seen Mr. Bartholomew Sholto in joy andin sorrow for ten long years, but I never saw him with such a face on himas that."Sherlock Holmes took the lamp and led the way, for Thaddeus Sholto'steeth were chattering in his head. So shaken was he that I had to pass myhand under his arm as we went up the stairs, for his knees were tremblingunder him. Twice as we ascended, Holmes whipped his lens out of hispocket and carefully examined marks which appeared to me to be mereshapeless smudges of dust upon the cocoanut-matting which served as astair-carpet. He walked slowly from step to step, holding the lamp low,and shooting keen glances to right and left. Miss Morstan had remainedbehind with the frightened housekeeper.The third flight of stairs ended in a straight passage of some length,with a great picture in Indian tapestry upon the right of it and three doorsupon the left. Holmes advanced along it in the same slow and methodical way, while we kept close at his heels, with our long black shadowsstreaming backward down the corridor. The third door was that which wewere seeking. Holmes knocked without receiving any answer, and thentried to turn the handle and force it open. It was locked on the inside,however, and by a broad and powerful bolt, as we could see when we setour lamp up against it. The key being turned, however, the hole was notentirely closed. Sherlock Holmes bent down to it and instantly rose againwith a sharp intaking of the breath."There is something devilish in this, Watson," said he, more movedthan I had ever before seen him. "What do you make of it?"[109] I stooped to the hole and recoiled in horror. Moonlight wasstreaming into the room, and it was bright with a vague and shiftyradiance. Looking straight at me and suspended, as it were, in the air, forall beneath was in shadow, there hung a face-the very face of ourcompanion Thaddeus. There was the same high, shining head, the samecircular bristle of red hair, the same bloodless countenance. The featureswere set, however, in a horrible smile, a fixed and unnatural grin, whichin that still and moonlit room was more jarring to the nerves than anyscowl or contortion. So like was the face to that of our little friend that Ilooked round at him to make sure that he was indeed with us. Then Irecalled to mind that he had mentioned to us that his brother and he weretwins."This is terrible!" I said to Holmes. "What is to be done?""The door must come down," he answered, and springing against it, heput all his weight upon the lock.It creaked and groaned but did not yield. Together we flung ourselvesupon it once more, and this time it gave way with a sudden snap, and wefound ourselves within Bartholomew Sholto's chamber.It appeared to have been fitted up as a chemical laboratory. A doubleline of glass-stoppered bottles was drawn up upon the wall opposite thedoor, and the table was littered over with Bunsen burners, test-tubes, andretorts. In the corners stood carboys of acid in wicker baskets. One ofthese appeared to leak or to have been broken, for a stream of darkcoloured liquid had trickled out from it, and the air was heavy with apeculiarly pungent, tarlike odour. A set of steps stood at one side of theroom in the midst of a litter of lath and plaster, and above them there wasan opening in the ceiling large enough for a man to pass through. At thefoot of the steps a long coil of rope was thrown carelessly together.By the table in a wooden armchair the master of the house was seatedall in a heap, with his head sunk upon his left shoulder and that ghastly,inscrutable smile upon his face. He was stiff and cold and had clearlybeen dead many hours. It seemed to me that not only his features but allhis limbs were twisted and turned in the most fantastic fashion. By hishand upon the table there lay a peculiar instrument-a brown, closegrained stick, with a stone head like a hammer, rudely lashed on withcoarse twine. Beside it was a torn sheet of note-paper with some wordsscrawled upon it. Holmes glanced at it and then handed it to me."You see," he said with a significant raising of the eyebrows.In the light of the lantern I read with a thrill of horror, "The sign of thefour.""In God's name, what does it all mean?" I asked."It means murder," said he, stooping over the dead man. "Ah! Iexpected it. Look here!"He pointed to what looked like a long dark thorn stuck in the skin justabove the ear."It looks like a thorn," said I."It is a thorn. You may pick it out. But be careful, for it is poisoned."I took it up between my finger and thumb. It came away from the skinso readily that hardly any mark was left behind. One tiny speck of bloodshowed where the puncture had been."This is all an insoluble mystery to me," said I. "It grows darker insteadof clearer.""On the contrary," he answered, "it clears every instant. I only require afew missing links to have an entirely connected case."[110] We had almost forgotten our companion's presence since we entered the chamber. He was still standing in the doorway, the verypicture of terror, wringing his hands and moaning to himself. Suddenly,however, he broke out into a sharp, querulous cry."The treasure is gone!" he said. "They have robbed him of the treasure!There is the hole through which we lowered it. I helped him to do it! Iwas the last person who saw him! I left him here last night, and I heardhim lock the door as I came downstairs.""What time was that?""It was ten o'clock. And now he is dead, and the police will be calledin, and I shall be suspected of having had a hand in it. Oh, yes, I am sure Ishall. But you don't think so, gentlemen? Surely you don't think that itwas I? Is it likely that I would have brought you here if it were I? Oh,dear! oh, dear! I know that I shall go mad!"He jerked his arms and stamped his feet in a kind of convulsive frenzy."You have no reason for fear, Mr. Sholto," said Holmes kindly, puttinghis hand upon his shoulder; "take my advice and drive down to the stationto report the matter to the police. Offer to assist them in every way. Weshall wait here until your return."The little man obeyed in a half-stupefied fashion, and we heard himstumbling down the stairs in the dark.