"My dear Holmes!" I ejaculated.
"Oh, there could be no question as to the superimposing of thefootmarks. I had the advantage of learning which was which last night.They ascended, then, to Mr. Blessington's room, the door of which theyfound to be locked. With the help of a wire, however, they forced roundthe key. Even without the lens you will perceive, by the scratches onthis ward, where the pressure was applied.
"On entering the room their first proceeding must have been to gag Mr.Blessington. He may have been asleep, or he may have been so paralyzedwith terror as to have been unable to cry out. These walls are thick,and it is conceivable that his shriek, if he had time to utter one, wasunheard.
"Having secured him, it is evident to me that a consultation of somesort was held. Probably it was something in the nature of a judicialproceeding. It must have lasted for some time, for it was then thatthese cigars were smoked. The older man sat in that wicker chair; itwas he who used the cigar-holder. The younger man sat over yonder; heknocked his ash off against the chest of drawers. The third fellow pacedup and down. Blessington, I think, sat upright in the bed, but of that Icannot be absolutely certain.
"Well, it ended by their taking Blessington and hanging him. The matterwas so prearranged that it is my belief that they brought with themsome sort of block or pulley which might serve as a gallows. Thatscrew-driver and those screws were, as I conceive, for fixing it up.Seeing the hook, however they naturally saved themselves the trouble.Having finished their work they made off, and the door was barred behindthem by their confederate."
We had all listened with the deepest interest to this sketch of thenight's doings, which Holmes had deduced from signs so subtle and minutethat, even when he had pointed them out to us, we could scarcely followhim in his reasoning. The inspector hurried away on the instant to makeinquiries about the page, while Holmes and I returned to Baker Streetfor breakfast.
"I'll be back by three," said he, when we had finished our meal. "Boththe inspector and the doctor will meet me here at that hour, and I hopeby that time to have cleared up any little obscurity which the case maystill present."
Our visitors arrived at the appointed time, but it was a quarter tofour before my friend put in an appearance. From his expression as heentered, however, I could see that all had gone well with him.
"Any news, Inspector?"
"We have got the boy, sir."
"Excellent, and I have got the men."
"You have got them!" we cried, all three.
"Well, at least I have got their identity. This so-called Blessingtonis, as I expected, well known at headquarters, and so are hisassailants. Their names are Biddle, Hayward, and Moffat."
"The Worthingdon bank gang," cried the inspector.
"Precisely," said Holmes.
"Then Blessington must have been Sutton."
"Exactly," said Holmes.
"Why, that makes it as clear as crystal," said the inspector.
But Trevelyan and I looked at each other in bewilderment.
"You must surely remember the great Worthingdon bank business," saidHolmes. "Five men were in it--these four and a fifth called Cartwright.Tobin, the care-taker, was murdered, and the thieves got away with seventhousand pounds. This was in 1875. They were all five arrested, but theevidence against them was by no means conclusive. This Blessington orSutton, who was the worst of the gang, turned informer. On his evidenceCartwright was hanged and the other three got fifteen years apiece. Whenthey got out the other day, which was some years before their full term,they set themselves, as you perceive, to hunt down the traitor and toavenge the death of their comrade upon him. Twice they tried to get athim and failed; a third time, you see, it came off. Is there anythingfurther which I can explain, Dr. Trevelyan?"
"I think you have made it all remarkably clear," said the doctor. "Nodoubt the day on which he was perturbed was the day when he had seen oftheir release in the newspapers."
"Quite so. His talk about a burglary was the merest blind."
"But why could he not tell you this?"
"Well, my dear sir, knowing the vindictive character of his oldassociates, he was trying to hide his own identity from everybody aslong as he could. His secret was a shameful one, and he could not bringhimself to divulge it. However, wretch as he was, he was still livingunder the shield of British law, and I have no doubt, Inspector, thatyou will see that, though that shield may fail to guard, the sword ofjustice is still there to avenge."
Such were the singular circumstances in connection with the ResidentPatient and the Brook Street Doctor. From that night nothing hasbeen seen of the three murderers by the police, and it is surmisedat Scotland Yard that they were among the passengers of the ill-fatedsteamer Norah Creina, which was lost some years ago with all handsupon the Portuguese coast, some leagues to the north of Oporto. Theproceedings against the page broke down for want of evidence, and theBrook Street Mystery, as it was called, has never until now been fullydealt with in any public print.
Adventure IX. The Greek Interpreter
During my long and intimate acquaintance with Mr. Sherlock Holmes I hadnever heard him refer to his relations, and hardly ever to his own earlylife. This reticence upon his part had increased the somewhat inhumaneffect which he produced upon me, until sometimes I found myselfregarding him as an isolated phenomenon, a brain without a heart, asdeficient in human sympathy as he was pre-eminent in intelligence. Hisaversion to women and his disinclination to form new friendships wereboth typical of his unemotional character, but not more so than hiscomplete suppression of every reference to his own people. I had come tobelieve that he was an orphan with no relatives living, but one day, tomy very great surprise, he began to talk to me about his brother.
It was after tea on a summer evening, and the conversation, which hadroamed in a desultory, spasmodic fashion from golf clubs to the causesof the change in the obliquity of the ecliptic, came round at lastto the question of atavism and hereditary aptitudes. The point underdiscussion was, how far any singular gift in an individual was due tohis ancestry and how far to his own early training.
"In your own case," said I, "from all that you have told me, it seemsobvious that your faculty of observation and your peculiar facility fordeduction are due to your own systematic training."
"To some extent," he answered, thoughtfully. "My ancestors were countrysquires, who appear to have led much the same life as is natural totheir class. But, none the less, my turn that way is in my veins, andmay have come with my grandmother, who was the sister of Vernet, theFrench artist. Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms."