by Otto Penzler
Randolph took two long strides toward the woman. “Not shoot him!” he repeated. “How then, in the name of heaven, did you kill Doomdorf?” And his big voice filled the empty places of the room.
“I will show you, sir,” she said.
She turned and went away into the house. Presently she returned with something folded up in a linen towel. She put it on the table between the loaf of bread and the yellow cheese.
Randolph stood over the table, and the woman’s deft fingers undid the towel from round its deadly contents; and presently the thing lay there uncovered.
It was a little crude model of a human figure done in wax with a needle thrust through the bosom.
Randolph stood up with a great intake of the breath. “Magic! By the eternal!”
“Yes, sir,” the woman explained, in her voice and manner of a child. “I have try to kill him many times—oh, very many times!—with witch words which I have remembered; but always they fail. Then, at last, I make him in wax, and I put a needle through his heart; and I kill him very quickly.”
It was clear as daylight, even to Randolph, that the woman was innocent. Her little harmless magic was the pathetic effort of a child to kill a dragon. He hesitated a moment before he spoke, and then he decided like the gentleman he was. If it helped the child to believe that her enchanted straw had slain the monster—well, he would let her believe it.
“And now, sir, may I go?”
Randolph looked at the woman in a sort of wonder. “Are you not afraid,” he said, “of the night and the mountains, and the long road?”
“Oh no, sir,” she replied simply. “The good God will be everywhere now.”
It was an awful commentary on the dead man—that this strange half-child believed that all the evil in the world had gone out with him; that now he was dead, the sunlight of heaven would fill every nook and corner.
It was not a faith that either of the two men wished to shatter, and they let her go. It would be daylight presently and the road through the mountains to the Chesapeake was open.
Randolph came back to the fireside after he had helped her into the saddle, and sat down. He tapped on the hearth for some time idly with the iron poker; and then finally he spoke.
“This is the strangest thing that ever happened,” he said. “Here’s a mad old preacher who thinks that he killed Doomdorf with fire from heaven, like Elijah the Tishbite; and here is a simple child of a woman who thinks she killed him with a piece of magic of the Middle Ages—each as innocent of his death as I am. And, yet, by the eternal, the beast is dead!”
He drummed on the hearth with the poker, lifting it up and letting it drop through the hollow of his fingers.
“Somebody shot Doomdorf. But who? And how did he get into and out of that shut-up room? The assassin that killed Doomdorf must have gotten into the room to kill him. Now, how did he get in?”
He spoke as to himself; but my uncle sitting across the hearth replied: “Through the window.”
“Through the window!” echoed Randolph. “Why, man, you yourself showed me that the window had not been opened, and the precipice below it a fly could hardly climb. Do you tell me now that the window was opened?”
“No,” said Abner, “it was never opened.”
Randolph got on his feet. “Abner,” he cried, “are you saying that the one who killed Doomdorf climbed the sheer wall and got in through a closed window, without disturbing the dust or the cobwebs on the window frame?”
My uncle looked Randolph in the face. “The murderer of Doomdorf did even more,” he said. “That assassin not only climbed the face of that precipice and got in through the closed window, but he shot Doomdorf to death and got out again through the closed window, without leaving a single track or trace behind, and without disturbing a grain of dust or a thread of a cobweb.”
Randolph swore a great oath. “The thing is impossible!” he cried. “Men are not killed today in Virginia by black art or a curse of God.”
“By black art, no,” replied Abner; “but by the curse of God, yes. I think they are.”
Randolph drove his clenched right hand into the palm of his left. “By the eternal!” he cried. “I would like to see the assassin who could do a murder like this, whether he be an imp from the pit or an angel out of heaven.”
“Very well,” replied Abner, undisturbed. “When he comes back tomorrow I will show you the assassin who killed Doomdorf.”
When day broke they dug a grave and buried the dead man against the mountain among his peach trees. It was noon when that work was ended. Abner threw down his spade and looked up at the sun. “Randolph,” he said, “let us go and lay an ambush for this assassin. He is on his way here.”
And it was a strange ambush that he laid. When they were come again into the chamber where Doomdorf died he bolted the door; then he loaded the fowling piece and put it carefully back on its rack against the wall. After that he did another curious thing: He took the blood-stained coat, which they had stripped off the dead man when they had prepared his body for the earth, put a pillow in it and laid it on the couch precisely where Doomdorf had slept. And while he did these things Randolph stood in wonder and Abner talked:
“Look you, Randolph … We will trick the murderer … We will catch him in the act.”
Then he went over and took the puzzled justice by the arm. “Watch!” he said. “The assassin is coming along the wall!”
But Randolph heard nothing, saw nothing. Only the sun entered. Abner’s hand tightened on his arm. “It is here! Look!” And he pointed to the wall.
Randolph, following the extended finger, saw a tiny brilliant disk of light moving slowly up the wall toward the lock of the fowling piece. Abner’s hand became a vise and his voice rang as over metal. “ ‘He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.’ It is the water bottle, full of Doomdorf’s liquid, focusing the sun.… And look, Randolph, how Bronson’s prayer was answered!”
The tiny disk of light traveled on the plate of the lock.
“It is fire from heaven!”
The words rang above the roar of the fowling piece, and Randolph saw the dead man’s coat leap up on the couch, riddled by the shot. The gun, in its natural position on the rack, pointed to the couch standing at the end of the chamber, beyond the offset of the wall, and the focused sun had exploded the percussion cap.
Randolph made a great gesture, with his arm extended. “It is a world,” he said, “filled with the mysterious joinder of accident!”
“It is a world,” replied Abner, “filled with the mysterious justice of God!”
THE ADVENTURE OF THE SPECKLED BAND
ONE OF THE MOST astonishing elements of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) is that, although written in the Victorian era, they lack the overwrought verbosity so prevalent in the prose of that time and remain as readable and fresh as anything produced in recent times. Equally astonishing is that Doyle believed that his most important fiction was such historical novels and short-story collections as Micah Clarke (1889), The White Company (1891), The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard (1896), and Sir Nigel (1906). He believed his most significant nonfiction work was in the spiritualism field, to which he devoted the last twenty years of his life, a considerable portion of his fortune, and prodigious energy, producing many major and not-so-major works on the subject.
He was deluded, of course, as Holmes was his supreme achievement, arguably the most famous fictional character ever created. The great detective’s first appearance was in the novel A Study in Scarlet (1887), followed by The Sign of Four (1890), neither of which changed the course of the detective story. This occurred when the first Holmes short story, “A Scandal in Bohemia,” was published in The Strand Magazine (July 1891), bringing the world’s first private detective to a huge readership. Monthly publication of new Holmes stories became so widely anticipated that eager readers queued up at news stalls awaiting each new issue.
One of the most famous H
olmes axioms was that when the impossible was eliminated, whatever remained must be the truth. This theory is in great evidence in the present story.
“The Adventure of the Speckled Band” was first published in the February 1892 issue of The Strand Magazine; it was first collected in book form in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (London, Newnes, 1892).
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
IN GLANCING over my notes of the seventy-odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth, he refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic. Of all these varied cases, however, I cannot recall any which presented more singular features than that which was associated with the well-known Surrey family of the Roylotts of Stoke Moran. The events in question occurred in the early days of my association with Holmes, when we were sharing rooms as bachelors, in Baker-street. It is possible that I might have placed them upon record before, but a promise of secrecy was made at the time, from which I have only been freed during the last month by the untimely death of the lady to whom the pledge was given. It is perhaps as well that the facts should now come to light, for I have reasons to know that there are widespread rumours as to the death of Dr. Grimesby Roylott which tend to make the matter even more terrible than the truth.
It was early in April in the year ’83 that I woke one morning to find Sherlock Holmes standing, fully dressed, by the side of my bed. He was a late riser as a rule, and, as the clock on the mantelpiece showed me that it was only a quarter past seven, I blinked up at him in some surprise, and perhaps just a little resentment, for I was myself regular in my habits.
“Very sorry to knock you up, Watson,” said he, “but it’s the common lot this morning. Mrs. Hudson has been knocked up, she retorted upon me, and I on you.”
“What is it, then? A fire?”
“No, a client. It seems that a young lady has arrived in a considerable state of excitement, who insists upon seeing me. She is waiting now in the sitting-room. Now, when young ladies wander about the Metropolis at this hour of the morning, and knock sleepy people up out of their beds, I presume that it is something very pressing which they have to communicate. Should it prove to be an interesting case, you would, I am sure, wish to follow it from the outset. I thought at any rate that I should call you, and give you the chance.”
“My dear fellow, I would not miss it for anything.”
I had no keener pleasure than in following Holmes in his professional investigations, and in admiring the rapid deductions, as swift as intuitions, and yet always founded on a logical basis, with which he unravelled the problems which were submitted to him. I rapidly threw on my clothes, and was ready in a few minutes to accompany my friend down to the sitting-room. A lady dressed in black and heavily veiled, who had been sitting in the window, rose as we entered.
“Good morning, madam,” said Holmes, cheerily. “My name is Sherlock Holmes. This is my intimate friend and associate, Dr. Watson, before whom you can speak as freely as before myself. Ha, I am glad to see that Mrs. Hudson has had the good sense to light the fire. Pray draw up to it, and I shall order you a cup of hot coffee, for I observe that you are shivering.”
“It is not cold which makes me shiver,” said the woman in a low voice, changing her seat as requested.
“What then?”
“It is fear, Mr. Holmes. It is terror.” She raised her veil as she spoke, and we could see that she was indeed in a pitiable state of agitation, her face all drawn and grey, with restless, frightened eyes, like those of some hunted animal. Her features and figure were those of a woman of thirty, but her hair was shot with premature grey, and her expression was weary and haggard. Sherlock Holmes ran her over with one of his quick, all-comprehensive glances.
“You must not fear,” said he, soothingly, bending forward and patting her forearm. “We shall soon set matters right, I have no doubt. You have come in by train this morning, I see.”
“You know me, then?”
“No, but I observe the second half of a return ticket in the palm of your left glove. You must have started early, and yet you had a good drive in a dog-cart, along heavy roads, before you reached the station.”
The lady gave a violent start, and stared in bewilderment at my companion.
“There is no mystery, my dear madam,” said he, smiling. “The left arm of your jacket is spattered with mud in no less than seven places. The marks are perfectly fresh. There is no vehicle save a dog-cart which throws up mud in that way, and then only when you sit on the left hand side of the driver.”
“Whatever your reasons may be, you are perfectly correct,” said she. “I started from home before six, reached Leatherhead at twenty past, and came in by the first train to Waterloo. Sir, I can stand this strain no longer, I shall go mad if it continues. I have no one to turn to—none, save only one, who cares for me, and he, poor fellow, can be of little aid. I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes; I have heard of you from Mrs. Farintosh, whom you helped in the hour of her sore need. It was from her that I had your address. Oh, sir, do you not think that you could help me too, and at least throw a little light through the dense darkness which surrounds me? At present it is out of my power to reward you for your services, but in a month or six weeks I shall be married, with the control of my own income, and then at least you shall not find me ungrateful.”
Holmes turned to his desk, and unlocking it, drew out a small case-book which he consulted.
“Farintosh,” said he. “Ah, yes, I recall the case; it was concerned with an opal tiara. I think it was before your time, Watson. I can only say, madam, that I shall be happy to devote the same care to your case as I did to that of your friend. As to reward, my profession is its own reward; but you are at liberty to defray whatever expenses I may be put to, at the time which suits you best. And now I beg that you will lay before us everything that may help us in forming an opinion upon the matter.”
“Alas!” replied our visitor. “The very horror of my situation lies in the fact that my fears are so vague, and my suspicions depend so entirely upon small points, which might seem trivial to another, that even he to whom of all others I have a right to look for help and advice looks upon all that I tell him about it as the fancies of a nervous woman. He does not say so, but I can read it from his soothing answers and averted eyes. But I have heard, Mr. Holmes, that you can see deeply into the manifold wickedness of the human heart. You may advise me how to walk amid the dangers which encompass me.”
“I am all attention, madam.”
“My name is Helen Stoner, and I am living with my stepfather, who is the last survivor of one of the oldest Saxon families in England, the Roylotts of Stoke Moran, on the western border of Surrey.”
Holmes nodded his head. “The name is familiar to me,” said he.
“The family was at one time among the richest in England, and the estates extended over the borders into Berkshire in the north, and Hampshire in the west. In the last century, however, four successive heirs were of a dissolute and wasteful disposition, and the family ruin was eventually completed by a gambler in the days of the Regency. Nothing was left save a few acres of ground, and the two-hundred-year-old house, which is itself crushed under a heavy mortgage. The last squire dragged out his existence there, living the horrible life of an aristocratic pauper; but his only son, my stepfather, seeing that he must adapt himself to the new conditions, obtained an advance from a relative, which enabled him to take a medical degree, and went out to Calcutta, where, by his professional skill and his force of character, he established a large practice. In a fit of anger, however, caused by some robberies which had been perpetrated in the house, he beat his native butler to death, and narrowly escaped a capital sentence. As it was, he suffered a long term of imprisonment, and afterwards
returned to England a morose and disappointed man.
“When Dr. Roylott was in India he married my mother, Mrs. Stoner, the young widow of Major-General Stoner, of the Bengal Artillery. My sister Julia and I were twins, and we were only two years old at the time of my mother’s remarriage. She had a considerable sum of money, not less than a thousand a year, and this she bequeathed to Dr. Roylott entirely whilst we resided with him, with a provision that a certain annual sum should be allowed to each of us in the event of our marriage. Shortly after our return to England my mother died—she was killed eight years ago in a railway accident near Crewe. Dr. Roylott then abandoned his attempts to establish himself in practice in London, and took us to live with him in the old ancestral house at Stoke Moran. The money which my mother had left was enough for all our wants, and there seemed to be no obstacle to our happiness.
“But a terrible change came over our stepfather about this time. Instead of making friends and exchanging visits with our neighbours, who had at first been overjoyed to see a Roylott of Stoke Moran back in the old family seat, he shut himself up in his house, and seldom came out save to indulge in ferocious quarrels with whoever might cross his path. Violence of temper approaching to mania has been hereditary in the men of the family, and in my stepfather’s case it had, I believe, been intensified by his long residence in the tropics. A series of disgraceful brawls took place, two of which ended in the police-court, until at last he became the terror of the village, and the folks would fly at his approach, for he is a man of immense strength, and absolutely uncontrollable in his anger.
“Last week he hurled the local blacksmith over a parapet into a stream, and it was only by paying over all the money which I could gather together that I was able to avert another public exposure. He had no friends at all save the wandering gipsies, and he would give these vagabonds leave to encamp upon the few acres of bramble-covered land which represent the family estate, and would accept in return the hospitality of their tents, wandering away with them sometimes for weeks on end. He has a passion also for Indian animals, which are sent over to him by a correspondent, and he has at this moment a cheetah and a baboon, which wander freely over his grounds, and are feared by the villagers almost as much as their master.
