is satisfactory so far as it goes,” thought I. “Friend Sholto is safe, at any rate. I wonder what the fresh clue may be, though it seems to be a stereotyped form whenever the police have made a blunder.”
I tossed the paper down upon the table, but at that moment my eye caught an advertisement in the agony column. It ran in this way:
LOST—Whereas Mordecai Smith, boatman, and his son, Jim, left Smith’s Wharf at or about three o’clock last Tuesday morning in the steam launch Aurora, black with two red stripes, funnel black with a white band, the sum of five pounds will be paid to any one who can give information to Mrs. Smith, at Smith’s Wharf, or at 221B, Baker Street, as to the whereabouts of the said Mordecai Smith and the launch Aurora.
This was clearly Holmes’s doing. The Baker Street address was enough to prove that. It struck me as rather ingenious, because it might be read by the fugitives without their seeing in it more than the natural anxiety of a wife for her missing husband.
It was a long day. Every time that a knock came to the door, or a sharp step passed in the street, I imagined that it was either Holmes returning or an answer to his advertisement. I tried to read, but my thoughts would wander off to our strange quest and to the ill-assorted and villainous pair whom we were pursuing. Could there be, I wondered, some radical flaw in my companion’s reasoning? Might he be suffering from some huge self-deception? Was it not possible that his nimble and speculative mind had built up this wild theory upon faulty premises? I had never known him to be wrong, and yet the keenest reasoner may occasionally be deceived. He was likely, I thought, to fall into error through the over-refinement of his logic—his preference for a subtle and bizarre explanation when a plainer and more commonplace one lay ready to his hand. Yet, on the other hand, I had myself seen the evidence, and I had heard the reasons for his deductions. When I looked back on the long chain of curious circumstances, many of them trivial in themselves, but all tending in the same direction, I could not disguise from myself that even if Holmes’s explanation were incorrect the true theory must be equally outré and startling.
At three o’clock in the afternoon there was a loud peal at the bell, an authoritative voice in the hall, and, to my surprise, no less a person than Mr. Athelney Jones was shown up to me. Very different was he, however, from the brusque and masterful professor of common sense who had taken over the case so confidently at Upper Norwood. His expression was downcast, and his bearing meek and even apologetic.
“Good-day, sir; good-day,” said he. “Mr. Sherlock Holmes is out, I understand?”
“Yes, and I cannot be sure when he will be back. But perhaps you would care to wait. Take that chair and try one of these cigars.”
“Thank you; I don’t mind if I do,” said he, mopping his face with a red bandanna handkerchief.
“And a whisky and soda?”
“Well, half a glass. It is very hot for the time of year; and I have had a good deal to worry and try me. You know my theory about this Norwood case?”
“I remember that you expressed one.”
“Well, I have been obliged to reconsider it. I had my net drawn tightly round Mr. Sholto, sir, when pop he went through a hole in the middle of it. He was able to prove an alibi which could not be shaken. From the time that he left his brother’s room he was never out of sight of someone or other. So it could not be he who climbed over roofs and through trapdoors. It’s a very dark case, and my professional credit is at stake. I should be very glad of a little assistance.”
“We all need help sometimes,” said I.
“Your friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes is a wonderful man, sir,” said he, in a husky and confidential voice. “He’s a man who is not to be beat. I have known that young man go into a good many cases, but I never saw the case yet that he could not throw a light upon. He is irregular in his methods, and a little quick perhaps in jumping at theories; but, on the whole, I think he would have made a most promising officer, and I don’t care who knows it. I have had a wire from him this morning, by which I understand that he has got some clue to this Sholto business. Here is the message.”
He took the telegram out of his pocket, and handed it to me. It was dated from Poplar at twelve o’clock.
Go to Baker Street at once. If I have not returned, wait for me. I am close on the track of the Sholto gang. You can come with us to-night if you want to be in at the finish.
“This sounds well. He has evidently picked up the scent again,” said I.
“Ah, then he has been at fault too,” exclaimed Jones, with evident satisfaction. “Even the best of us are thrown off sometimes. Of course this may prove to be a false alarm; but it is my duty as an officer of the law to allow no chance to slip. But there is some one at the door. Perhaps this is he.”
A heavy step was heard ascending the stair, with a great wheezing and rattling as from a man who was sorely put to it for breath. Once or twice he stopped, as though the climb were too much for him, but at last he made his way to our door and entered. His appearance corresponded to the sounds which we had heard. He was an aged man, clad in seafaring garb, with an old pea-jacket buttoned up to his throat. His back was bowed, his knees were shaky, and his breathing was painfully asthmatic. As he leaned upon a thick oaken cudgel his shoulders heaved in the effort to draw the air into his lungs. He had a coloured scarf round his chin, and I could see little of his face save a pair of keen dark eyes, overhung by bushy white brows, and long grey side-whiskers. Altogether he gave me the impression of a respectable master mariner who had fallen into years and poverty.
“What is it, my man?” I asked.
He looked about him in the slow methodical fashion of old age.
“Is Mr. Sherlock Holmes here?” said he.
“No; but I am acting for him. You can tell me any message you have for him.”
“It was to him himself I was to tell it,” said he.
“But I tell you that I am acting for him. Was it about Mordecai Smith’s boat?”
“Yes. I knows well where it is. An’ I knows where the men he is after are. An’ I knows where the treasure is. I knows all about it.”
“Then tell me, and I shall let him know.”
“It was to him I was to tell it,” he repeated, with the petulant obstinacy of a very old man.
“Well, you must wait for him.”
“No, no; I ain’t goin’ to lose a whole day to please no one. If Mr. Holmes ain’t here, then Mr. Holmes must find it all out for himself. I don’t care about the look of either of you, and I won’t tell a word.”
He shuffled towards the door, but Athelney Jones got in front of him.
“Wait a bit, my friend,” said he. “You have important information, and you must not walk off. We shall keep you, whether you like or not, until our friend returns.”
The old man made a little run towards the door, but, as Athelney Jones put his broad back up against it, he recognized the uselessness of resistance.
“Pretty sort o’ treatment this!” he cried, stamping his stick. “I come here to see a gentleman, and you two, who I never saw in my life, seize me and
