"My God! Are you in the police yourself?"
"No."
"What business is it of yours, then?"
"It's every man's business to see justice done."
"You can take my word that she is innocent."
"Then you are guilty."
"No, I am not."
"Who killed Colonel James Barclay, then?"
"It was a just providence that killed him. But, mind you this, that ifI had knocked his brains out, as it was in my heart to do, he would havehad no more than his due from my hands. If his own guilty conscience hadnot struck him down it is likely enough that I might have had his bloodupon my soul. You want me to tell the story. Well, I don't know why Ishouldn't, for there's no cause for me to be ashamed of it.
"It was in this way, sir. You see me now with my back like a camel andmy ribs all awry, but there was a time when Corporal Henry Wood was thesmartest man in the 117th foot. We were in India then, in cantonments,at a place we'll call Bhurtee. Barclay, who died the other day, wassergeant in the same company as myself, and the belle of the regiment,ay, and the finest girl that ever had the breath of life between herlips, was Nancy Devoy, the daughter of the color-sergeant. There weretwo men that loved her, and one that she loved, and you'll smile whenyou look at this poor thing huddled before the fire, and hear me saythat it was for my good looks that she loved me.
"Well, though I had her heart, her father was set upon her marryingBarclay. I was a harum-scarum, reckless lad, and he had had aneducation, and was already marked for the sword-belt. But the girl heldtrue to me, and it seemed that I would have had her when the Mutinybroke out, and all hell was loose in the country.
"We were shut up in Bhurtee, the regiment of us with half a battery ofartillery, a company of Sikhs, and a lot of civilians and women-folk.There were ten thousand rebels round us, and they were as keen as a setof terriers round a rat-cage. About the second week of it our water gaveout, and it was a question whether we could communicate with GeneralNeill's column, which was moving up country. It was our only chance, forwe could not hope to fight our way out with all the women and children,so I volunteered to go out and to warn General Neill of our danger. Myoffer was accepted, and I talked it over with Sergeant Barclay, who wassupposed to know the ground better than any other man, and who drew upa route by which I might get through the rebel lines. At ten o'clock thesame night I started off upon my journey. There were a thousand lives tosave, but it was of only one that I was thinking when I dropped over thewall that night.
"My way ran down a dried-up watercourse, which we hoped would screenme from the enemy's sentries; but as I crept round the corner of itI walked right into six of them, who were crouching down in the darkwaiting for me. In an instant I was stunned with a blow and bound handand foot. But the real blow was to my heart and not to my head, for asI came to and listened to as much as I could understand of their talk,I heard enough to tell me that my comrade, the very man who had arrangedthe way that I was to take, had betrayed me by means of a native servantinto the hands of the enemy.
"Well, there's no need for me to dwell on that part of it. You know nowwhat James Barclay was capable of. Bhurtee was relieved by Neill nextday, but the rebels took me away with them in their retreat, and it wasmany a long year before ever I saw a white face again. I was torturedand tried to get away, and was captured and tortured again. You can seefor yourselves the state in which I was left. Some of them that fledinto Nepaul took me with them, and then afterwards I was up pastDarjeeling. The hill-folk up there murdered the rebels who had me, andI became their slave for a time until I escaped; but instead of goingsouth I had to go north, until I found myself among the Afghans. ThereI wandered about for many a year, and at last came back to the Punjab,where I lived mostly among the natives and picked up a living by theconjuring tricks that I had learned. What use was it for me, a wretchedcripple, to go back to England or to make myself known to my oldcomrades? Even my wish for revenge would not make me do that. I hadrather that Nancy and my old pals should think of Harry Wood as havingdied with a straight back, than see him living and crawling with a sticklike a chimpanzee. They never doubted that I was dead, and I meant thatthey never should. I heard that Barclay had married Nancy, and that hewas rising rapidly in the regiment, but even that did not make me speak.
"But when one gets old one has a longing for home. For years I've beendreaming of the bright green fields and the hedges of England. At last Idetermined to see the
m before I died. I saved enough to bring me across,and then I came here where the soldiers are, for I know their ways andhow to amuse them and so earn enough to keep me."
"Your narrative is most interesting," said Sherlock Holmes. "I havealready heard of your meeting with Mrs. Barclay, and your mutualrecognition. You then, as I understand, followed her home and sawthrough the window an altercation between her husband and her, in whichshe doubtless cast his conduct to you in his teeth. Your own feelingsovercame you, and you ran across the lawn and broke in upon them."
"I did, sir, and at the sight of me he looked as I have never seen a manlook before, and over he went with his head on the fender. But he wasdead before he fell. I read death on his face as plain as I can readthat text over the fire. The bare sight of me was like a bullet throughhis guilty heart."
"And then?"
"Then Nancy fainted, and I caught up the key of the door from her hand,intending to unlock it and get help. But as I was doing it it seemed tome better to leave it alone and get away, for the thing might look blackagainst me, and any way my secret would be out if I were taken. In myhaste I thrust the key into my pocket, and dropped my stick while I waschasing Teddy, who had run up the curtain. When I got him into his box,from which he had slipped, I was off as fast as I could run."
"Who's Teddy?" asked Holmes.
The man leaned over and pulled up the front of a kind of hutch inthe corner. In an instant out there slipped a beautiful reddish-browncreature, thin and lithe, with the legs of a stoat, a long, thin nose,and a pair of the finest red eyes that ever I saw in an animal's head.
"It's a mongoose," I cried.
"Well, some call them that, and some call them ichneumon," said theman. "Snake-catcher is what I call them, and Teddy is amazing quick oncobras. I have one here without the fangs, and Teddy catches it everynight to please the folk in the canteen.
"Any other point, sir?"
"Well, we may have to apply to you again if Mrs. Barclay should prove tobe in serious trouble."
"In that case, of course, I'd come forward."
"But if not, there is no object in raking up this scandal against adead man, foully as he has acted. You have at least the satisfactionof knowing that for thirty years of his life his conscience bitterlyreproached him for this wicked deed. Ah, there goes Major Murphy on theother side of the street. Good-by, Wood. I want to learn if anything hashappened since yesterday."
We were in time to overtake the major before he reached the corner.
"Ah, Holmes," he said: "I suppose you have heard that all this fuss hascome to nothing?"