“Nothing?”
“To tell the truth” —he sank his face into his thin, whitehands— “I have felt helpless. I have felt like one of those poorrabbits when the snake is writhing towards it. I seem to be in thegrasp of some resistless, inexorable evil, which no foresight and noprecautions can guard against.”
“Tut! tut!” cried Sherlock Holmes. “You must act, man, or you arelost. Nothing but energy can save you. This is no time for despair.”
“I have seen the police.”
“Ah!”
“But they listened to my story with a smile. I am convincedthat the inspector has formed the opinion that the letters are allpractical jokes, and that the deaths of my relations were reallyaccidents, as the jury stated, and were not to be connected withthe warnings.”
Holmes shook his clenched hands in the air. “Incredibleimbecility!” he cried.
“They have, however, allowed me a policeman, who may remainin the house with me.”
“Has he come with you to-night?”
“No. His orders were to stay in the house.”
Again Holmes raved in the air.
“Why did you come to me,” he cried, “and, above all, why didyou not come at once?”
“I did not know. It was only to-day that I spoke to MajorPrendergast about my troubles and was advised by him to come toyou.”
“It is really two days since you had the letter. We should haveacted before this. You have no further evidence, I suppose, thanthat which you have placed before us—no suggestive detail whichmight help us?”
“There is one thing,” said John Openshaw. He rummaged in hiscoat pocket, and, drawing out a piece of discoloured, blue-tintedpaper, he laid it out upon the table. “I have some remembrance,”
said he, “that on the day when my uncle burned the papers Iobserved that the small, unburned margins which lay amid theashes were of this particular colour. I found this single sheet uponthe floor of his room, and I am inclined to think that it may beone of the papers which has, perhaps, fluttered out from amongthe others, and in that way has escaped destruction. Beyondthe mention of pips, I do not see that it helps us much. I thinkmyself that it is a page from some private diary. The writing isundoubtedly my uncle’s.”
Holmes moved the lamp, and we both bent over the sheet ofpaper, which showed by its ragged edge that it had indeed beentorn from a book. It was headed, “March, 1869,” and beneath werethe following enigmatical notices:
“4th. Hudson came. Same old platform.
“7th. Set the pips on McCauley, Paramore, andJohn Swain, of St. Augustine.
“9th. McCauley cleared.
“10th. John Swain cleared.
“12th. Visited Paramore. All well.”
“Thank you!” said Holmes, folding up the paper and returningit to our visitor. “And now you must on no account lose anotherinstant. We cannot spare time even to discuss what you have toldme. You must get home instantly and act.”
“What shall I do?”
“There is but one thing to do. It must be done at once. Youmust put this piece of paper which you have shown us into thebrass box which you have described. You must also put in a note tosay that all the other papers were burned by your uncle, and thatthis is the only one which remains. You must assert that in suchwords as will carry conviction with them. Having done this, youmust at once put the box out upon the sundial, as directed. Doyou understand?”
“Entirely.”
“Do not think of revenge, or anything of the sort, at present.
I think that we may gain that by means of the law; but wehave our web to weave, while theirs is already woven. The firstconsideration is to remove the pressing danger which threatensyou. The second is to clear up the mystery and to punish the guiltyparties.”
“I thank you,” said the young man, rising and pulling on hisovercoat. “You have given me fresh life and hope. I shall certainlydo as you advise.”
“Do not lose an instant. And, above all, take care of yourself inthe meanwhile, for I do not think that there can be a doubt thatyou are threatened by a very real and imminent danger. How doyou go back?”
“By train from Waterloo.”
“It is not yet nine. The streets will be crowded, so I trust thatyou may be in safety. And yet you cannot guard yourself tooclosely.”
“I am armed.”
“That is well. To-morrow I shall set to work upon your case.”
“I shall see you at Horsham, then?”
“No, your secret lies in London. It is there that I shall seek it.”
“Then I shall call upon you in a day, or in two days, with newsas to the box and the papers. I shall take your advice in everyparticular.” He shook hands with us and took his leave. Outsidethe wind still screamed and the rain splashed and pattered againstthe windows. This strange, wild story seemed to have come to usfrom amid the mad elements—blown in upon us like a sheet ofsea-weed in a gale—and now to have been reabsorbed by themonce more.
Sherlock Holmes sat for some time in silence, with his headsunk forward and his eyes bent upon the red glow of the fire. Thenhe lit his pipe, and leaning back in his chair he watched the bluesmoke-rings as they chased each other up to the ceiling.
“I think, Watson,” he remarked at last, “that of all our cases wehave had none more fantastic than this.”
“Save, perhaps, the Sign of Four.”
“Well, yes. Save, perhaps, that. And yet this John Openshawseems to me to be walking amid even greater perils than did theSholtos.”
“But have you,” I asked, “formed any definite conception as towhat these perils are?”
“There can be no question as to their nature,” he answered.
“Then what are they? Who is this K. K. K., and why does hepursue this unhappy family?”
Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes and placed his elbows uponthe arms of his chair, with his finger-tips together. “The idealreasoner,” he remarked, “would, when he had once been shown asingle fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chainof events which led up to it but also all the results which wouldfollow from it. As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animalby the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who hasthoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should beable to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after.
