The Return of Sherlock Holmes

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I crept forward and looked across at the familiar window. As my eyes
fell upon it, I gave a gasp and a cry of amazement. The blind was down,
and a strong light was burning in the room. The shadow of a man who
was seated in a chair within was thrown in hard, black outline upon the
luminous screen of the window. There was no mistaking the poise of the
head, the squareness of the shoulders, the sharpness of the features.
The face was turned half-round, and the effect was that of one of
those black silhouettes which our grandparents loved to frame. It was a
perfect reproduction of Holmes. So amazed was I that I threw out my
hand to make sure that the man himself was standing beside me. He was
quivering with silent laughter.

"Well?" said he.

"Good heavens!" I cried. "It is marvellous."

"I trust that age doth not wither nor custom stale my infinite variety,"
said he, and I recognized in his voice the joy and pride which the
artist takes in his own creation. "It really is rather like me, is it
not?"

"I should be prepared to swear that it was you."

"The credit of the execution is due to Monsieur Oscar Meunier, of
Grenoble, who spent some days in doing the moulding. It is a bust in
wax. The rest I arranged myself during my visit to Baker Street this
afternoon."

"But why?"

"Because, my dear Watson, I had the strongest possible reason for
wishing certain people to think that I was there when I was really
elsewhere."

"And you thought the rooms were watched?"

"I KNEW that they were watched."

"By whom?"

"By my old enemies, Watson. By the charming society whose leader lies
in the Reichenbach Fall. You must remember that they knew, and only
they knew, that I was still alive. Sooner or later they believed that I
should come back to my rooms. They watched them continuously, and this
morning they saw me arrive."

"How do you know?"

"Because I recognized their sentinel when I glanced out of my window. He
is a harmless enough fellow, Parker by name, a garroter by trade, and a
remarkable performer upon the jew's-harp. I cared nothing for him. But
I cared a great deal for the much more formidable person who was behind
him, the bosom friend of Moriarty, the man who dropped the rocks over
the cliff, the most cunning and dangerous criminal in London. That is
the man who is after me to-night Watson, and that is the man who is
quite unaware that we are after him."

My friend's plans were gradually revealing themselves. From this
convenient retreat, the watchers were being watched and the trackers
tracked. That angular shadow up yonder was the bait, and we were the
hunters. In silence we stood together in the darkness and watched the
hurrying figures who passed and repassed in front of us. Holmes was
silent and motionless; but I could tell that he was keenly alert, and
that his eyes were fixed intently upon the stream of passers-by. It was
a bleak and boisterous night and the wind whistled shrilly down the
long street. Many people were moving to and fro, most of them muffled in
their coats and cravats. Once or twice it seemed to me that I had seen
the same figure before, and I especially noticed two men who appeared
to be sheltering themselves from the wind in the doorway of a house
some distance up the street. I tried to draw my companion's attention to
them; but he gave a little ejaculation of impatience, and continued
to stare into the street. More than once he fidgeted with his feet and
tapped rapidly with his fingers upon the wall. It was evident to me
that he was becoming uneasy, and that his plans were not working out
altogether as he had hoped. At last, as midnight approached and
the street gradually cleared, he paced up and down the room in
uncontrollable agitation. I was about to make some remark to him, when
I raised my eyes to the lighted window, and again experienced almost as
great a surprise as before. I clutched Holmes's arm, and pointed upward.

"The shadow has moved!" I cried.

It was indeed no longer the profile, but the back, which was turned
towards us.

Three years had certainly not smoothed the asperities of his temper or
his impatience with a less active intelligence than his own.

"Of course it has moved," said he. "Am I such a farcical bungler,
Watson, that I should erect an obvious dummy, and expect that some of
the sharpest men in Europe would be deceived by it? We have been in
this room two hours, and Mrs. Hudson has made some change in that figure
eight times, or once in every quarter of an hour. She works it from the
front, so that her shadow may never be seen. Ah!" He drew in his breath
with a shrill, excited intake. In the dim light I saw his head thrown
forward, his whole attitude rigid with attention. Outside the street
was absolutely deserted. Those two men might still be crouching in the
doorway, but I could no longer see them. All was still and dark, save
only that brilliant yellow screen in front of us with the black figure
outlined upon its centre. Again in the utter silence I heard that thin,
sibilant note which spoke of intense suppressed excitement. An instant
later he pulled me back into the blackest corner of the room, and I
felt his warning hand upon my lips. The fingers which clutched me were
quivering. Never had I known my friend more moved, and yet the dark
street still stretched lonely and motionless before us.

But suddenly I was aware of that which his keener senses had already
distinguished. A low, stealthy sound came to my ears, not from the
direction of Baker Street, but from the back of the very house in which
we lay concealed. A door opened and shut. An instant later steps
crept down the passage--steps which were meant to be silent, but which
reverberated harshly through the empty house. Holmes crouched back
against the wall, and I did the same, my hand closing upon the handle
of my revolver. Peering through the gloom, I saw the vague outline of a
man, a shade blacker than the blackness of the open door. He stood for
an instant, and then he crept forward, crouching, menacing, into the
room. He was within three yards of us, this sinister figure, and I had
braced myself to meet his spring, before I realized that he had no idea
of our presence. He passed close beside us, stole over to the window,
and very softly and noiselessly raised it for half a foot. As he sank to
the level of this opening, the light of the street, no longer dimmed by
the dusty glass, fell full upon his face. The man seemed to be beside
himself with excitement. His two eyes shone like stars, and his
features were working convulsively. He was an elderly man, with a thin,
projecting nose, a high, bald forehead, and a huge grizzled moustache.
An opera hat was pushed to the back of his head, and an evening dress
shirt-front gleamed out through his open overcoat. His face was gaunt
and swarthy, scored with deep, savage lines. In his hand he carried what
appeared to be a stick, but as he laid it down upon the floor it gave
a metallic clang. Then from the pocket of his overcoat he drew a bulky
object, and he busied himself in some task which ended with a loud,
sharp click, as if a spring or bolt had fallen into its place. Still
kneeling upon the floor he bent forward and threw all his weight and
strength upon some lever, with the result that there came a long,
whirling, grinding noise, ending once more in a powerful click. He
straightened himself then, and I saw that what he held in his hand was
a sort of gun, with a curiously misshapen butt. He opened it at the
breech, put something in, and snapped the breech-lock. Then, crouching
down, he rested the end of the barrel upon the ledge of the open window,
and I saw his long moustache droop over the stock and his eye gleam as
it peered along the sights. I heard a little sigh of satisfaction as
he cuddled the butt into his shoulder; and saw that amazing target,
the black man on the yellow ground, standing clear at the end of his
foresight. For an instant he was rigid and motionless. Then his finger
tightened on the trigger. There was a strange, loud whiz and a long,
silvery tinkle of broken glass. At that instant Holmes sprang like a
tiger on to the marksman's back, and hurled him flat upon his face. He
was up again in a moment, and with convulsive strength he seized
Holmes by the throat, but I struck him on the head with the butt of my
revolver, and he dropped again upon the floor. I fell upon him, and as
I held him my comrade blew a shrill call upon a whistle. There was the
clatter of running feet upon the pavement, and two policemen in uniform,
with one plain-clothes detective, rushed through the front entrance and
into the room.

"That you, Lestrade?" said Holmes.

"Yes, Mr. Holmes. I took the job myself. It's good to see you back in
London, sir."

"I think you want a little unofficial help. Three undetected murders in
one year won't do, Lestrade. But you handled the Molesey Mystery with
less than your usual--that's to say, you handled it fairly well."

We had all risen to our feet, our prisoner breathing hard, with a
stalwart constable on each side of him. Already a few loiterers had
begun to collect in the street. Holmes stepped up to the window, closed
it, and dropped the blinds. Lestrade had produced two candles, and the
policemen had uncovered their lanterns. I was able at last to have a
good look at our prisoner.

It was a tremendously virile and yet sinister face which was turned
towards us. With the brow of a philosopher above and the jaw of a
sensualist below, the man must have started with great capacities for
good or for evil. But one could not look upon his cruel blue eyes, with
their drooping, cynical lids, or upon the fierce, aggressive nose and
the threatening, deep-lined brow, without reading Nature's plainest
danger-signals. He took no heed of any of us, but his eyes were fixed
upon Holmes's face with an expression in which hatred and amazement were
equally blended. "You fiend!" he kept on muttering. "You clever, clever
fiend!"

"Ah, Colonel!" said Holmes, arranging his rumpled collar. "'Journeys end
in lovers' meetings,' as the old play says. I don't think I have had the
pleasure of seeing you since you favoured me with those attentions as I
lay on the ledge above the Reichenbach Fall."

The colonel still stared at my friend like a man in a trance. "You
cunning, cunning fiend!" was all that he could say.

"I have not introduced you yet," said Holmes. "This, gentlemen, is
Colonel Sebastian Moran, once of Her Majesty's Indian Army, and the best
heavy-game shot that our Eastern Empire has ever produced. I believe
I am correct Colonel, in saying that your bag of tigers still remains
unrivalled?"

The fierce old man said nothing, but still glared at my companion. With
his savage eyes and bristling moustache he was wonderfully like a tiger
himself.

"I wonder that my very simple stratagem could deceive so old a SHIKARI,"
said Holmes. "It must be very familiar to you. Have you not tethered a
young kid under a tree, lain above it with your rifle, and waited for
the bait to bring up your tiger? This empty house is my tree, and you
are my tiger. You have possibly had other guns in reserve in case there
should be several tigers, or in the unlikely supposition of your own aim
failing you. These," he pointed around, "are my other guns. The parallel
is exact."

Colonel Moran sprang forward with a snarl of rage, but the constables
dragged him back. The fury upon his face was terrible to look at.

"I confess that you had one small surprise for me," said Holmes. "I did
not anticipate that you would yourself make use of this empty house and
this convenient front window. I had imagined you as operating from the
street, where my friend, Lestrade and his merry men were awaiting you.
With that exception, all has gone as I expected."

Colonel Moran turned to the official detective.

"You may or may not have just cause for arresting me," said he, "but at
least there can be no reason why I should submit to the gibes of this
person. If I am in the hands of the law, let things be done in a legal
way."

"Well, that's reasonable enough," said Lestrade. "Nothing further you
have to say, Mr. Holmes, before we go?"

Holmes had picked up the powerful air-gun from the floor, and was
examining its mechanism.

"An admirable and unique weapon," said he, "noiseless and of tremendous
power: I knew Von Herder, the blind German mechanic, who constructed it
to the order of the late Professor Moriarty. For years I have been
aware of its existence though I have never before had the opportunity of
handling it. I commend it very specially to your attention, Lestrade and
also the bullets which fit it."

"You can trust us to look after that, Mr. Holmes," said Lestrade, as the
whole party moved towards the door. "Anything further to say?"

"Only to ask what charge you intend to prefer?"

"What charge, sir? Why, of course, the attempted murder of Mr. Sherlock
Holmes."

"Not so, Lestrade. I do not propose to appear in the matter at all. To
you, and to you only, belongs the credit of the remarkable arrest which
you have effected. Yes, Lestrade, I congratulate you! With your usual
happy mixture of cunning and audacity, you have got him."

"Got him! Got whom, Mr. Holmes?"

"The man that the whole force has been seeking in vain--Colonel
Sebastian Moran, who shot the Honourable Ronald Adair with an expanding
bullet from an air-gun through the open window of the second-floor
front of No. 427 Park Lane, upon the thirtieth of last month. That's the
charge, Lestrade. And now, Watson, if you can endure the draught from
a broken window, I think that half an hour in my study over a cigar may
afford you some profitable amusement."

Our old chambers had been left unchanged through the supervision of
Mycroft Holmes and the immediate care of Mrs. Hudson. As I entered I
saw, it is true, an unwonted tidiness, but the old landmarks were all
in their place. There were the chemical corner and the acid-stained,
deal-topped table. There upon a shelf was the row of formidable
scrap-books and books of reference which many of our fellow-citizens
would have been so glad to burn. The diagrams, the violin-case, and the
pipe-rack--even the Persian slipper which contained the tobacco--all
met my eyes as I glanced round me. There were two occupants of the
room--one, Mrs. Hudson, who beamed upon us both as we entered--the
other, the strange dummy which had played so important a part in the
evening's adventures. It was a wax-coloured model of my friend, so
admirably done that it was a perfect facsimile. It stood on a small
pedestal table with an old dressing-gown of Holmes's so draped round it
that the illusion from the street was absolutely perfect.

"I hope you observed all precautions, Mrs. Hudson?" said Holmes.

"I went to it on my knees, sir, just as you told me."

"Excellent. You carried the thing out very well. Did you observe where
the bullet went?"

"Yes, sir. I'm afraid it has spoilt your beautiful bust, for it passed
right through the head and flattened itself on the wall. I picked it up
from the carpet. Here it is!"

Holmes held it out to me. "A soft revolver bullet, as you perceive,
Watson. There's genius in that, for who would expect to find such a
thing fired from an airgun? All right, Mrs. Hudson. I am much obliged
for your assistance. And now, Watson, let me see you in your old seat
once more, for there are several points which I should like to discuss
with you."

He had thrown off the seedy frockcoat, and now he was the Holmes of old
in the mouse-coloured dressing-gown which he took from his effigy.

"The old SHIKARI'S nerves have not lost their steadiness, nor his eyes
their keenness," said he, with a laugh, as he inspected the shattered
forehead of his bust.

"Plumb in the middle of the back of the head and smack through the
brain. He was the best shot in India, and I expect that there are few
better in London. Have you heard the name?"

"No, I have not."

"Well, well, such is fame! But, then, if I remember right, you had not
heard the name of Professor James Moriarty, who had one of the great
brains of the century. Just give me down my index of biographies from
the shelf."

He turned over the pages lazily, leaning back in his chair and blowing
great clouds from his cigar.

"My collection of M's is a fine one," said he. "Moriarty himself is
enough to make any letter illustrious, and here is Morgan the poisoner,
and Merridew of abominable memory, and Mathews, who knocked out my left
canine in the waiting-room at Charing Cross, and, finally, here is our
friend of to-night."

He handed over the book, and I read:

MORAN, SEBASTIAN, COLONEL. Unemployed. Formerly 1st Bangalore Pioneers.
Born London, 1840. Son of Sir Augustus Moran, C. B., once British
Minister to Persia. Educated Eton and Oxford. Served in Jowaki Campaign,
Afghan Campaign, Charasiab (despatches), Sherpur, and Cabul. Author of
HEAVY GAME OF THE WESTERN HIMALAYAS (1881); THREE MONTHS IN THE
JUNGLE (1884). Address: Conduit Street. Clubs: The Anglo-Indian, the
Tankerville, the Bagatelle Card Club.


On the margin was written, in Holmes's precise hand:


The second most dangerous man in London.


"This is astonishing," said I, as I handed back the volume. "The man's
career is that of an honourable soldier."

"It is true," Holmes answered. "Up to a certain point he did well. He
was always a man of iron nerve, and the story is still told in India how
he crawled down a drain after a wounded man-eating tiger. There are some
trees, Watson, which grow to a certain height, and then suddenly develop
some unsightly eccentricity. You will see it often in humans. I have
a theory that the individual represents in his development the whole
procession of his ancestors, and that such a sudden turn to good or
evil stands for some strong influence which came into the line of his
pedigree. The person becomes, as it were, the epitome of the history of
his own family."

"It is surely rather fanciful."

"Well, I don't insist upon it. Whatever the cause, Colonel Moran began
hot to hold him. He retired, came to London, and again acquired an evil
name. It was at this time that he was sought out by Professor Moriarty,
to whom for a time he was chief of the staff. Moriarty supplied him
liberally with money, and used him only in one or two very high-class
jobs, which no ordinary criminal could have undertaken. You may have
some recollection of the death of Mrs. Stewart, of Lauder, in 1887.
Not? Well, I am sure Moran was at the bottom of it, but nothing could
be proved. So cleverly was the colonel concealed that, even when the
Moriarty gang was broken up, we could not incriminate him. You remember
at that date, when I called upon you in your rooms, how I put up the
shutters for fear of air-guns? No doubt you thought me fanciful. I knew
exactly what I was doing, for I knew of the existence of this remarkable
gun, and I knew also that one of the best shots in the world would be
behind it. When we were in Switzerland he followed us with Moriarty,
and it was undoubtedly he who gave me that evil five minutes on the
Reichenbach ledge.

"You may think that I read the papers with some attention during my
sojourn in France, on the look-out for any chance of laying him by the
heels. So long as he was free in London, my life would really not have
been worth living. Night and day the shadow would have been over me, and
sooner or later his chance must have come. What could I do? I could not
shoot him at sight, or I should myself be in the dock. There was no use
appealing to a magistrate. They cannot interfere on the strength of what
would appear to them to be a wild suspicion. So I could do nothing. But
I watched the criminal news, knowing that sooner or later I should get
him. Then came the death of this Ronald Adair. My chance had come at
last. Knowing what I did, was it not certain that Colonel Moran had done
it? He had played cards with the lad, he had followed him home from the
club, he had shot him through the open window. There was not a doubt of
it. The bullets alone are enough to put his head in a noose. I came
over at once. I was seen by the sentinel, who would, I knew, direct
the colonel's attention to my presence. He could not fail to connect
my sudden return with his crime, and to be terribly alarmed. I was sure
that he would make an attempt to get me out of the way AT once, and
would bring round his murderous weapon for that purpose. I left him an
excellent mark in the window, and, having warned the police that they
might be needed--by the way, Watson, you spotted their presence in that
doorway with unerring accuracy--I took up what seemed to me to be a
judicious post for observation, never dreaming that he would choose the
same spot for his attack. Now, my dear Watson, does anything remain for
me to explain?"

"Yes," said I. "You have not made it clear what was Colonel Moran's
motive in murdering the Honourable Ronald Adair?"

"Ah! my dear Watson, there we come into those realms of conjecture,
where the most logical mind may be at fault. Each may form his own
hypothesis upon the present evidence, and yours is as likely to be
correct as mine."

"You have formed one, then?"

"I think that it is not difficult to explain the facts. It came out in
evidence that Colonel Moran and young Adair had, between them, won a
considerable amount of money. Now, undoubtedly played foul--of that I
have long been aware. I believe that on the day of the murder Adair had
discovered that Moran was cheating. Very likely he had spoken to him
privately, and had threatened to expose him unless he voluntarily
resigned his membership of the club, and promised not to play cards
again. It is unlikely that a youngster like Adair would at once make a
hideous scandal by exposing a well known man so much older than himself.
Probably he acted as I suggest. The exclusion from his clubs would mean
ruin to Moran, who lived by his ill-gotten card-gains. He therefore
murdered Adair, who at the time was endeavouring to work out how
much money he should himself return, since he could not profit by his
partner's foul play. He locked the door lest the ladies should surprise
him and insist upon knowing what he was doing with these names and
coins. Will it pass?"

"I have no doubt that you have hit upon the truth."

"It will be verified or disproved at the trial. Meanwhile, come what
may, Colonel Moran will trouble us no more. The famous air-gun of Von
Herder will embellish the Scotland Yard Museum, and once again
Mr. Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those
interesting little problems which the complex life of London so
plentifully presents."




THE ADVENTURE OF THE NORWOOD BUILDER


"From the point of view of the criminal expert," said Mr. Sherlock
Holmes, "London has become a singularly uninteresting city since the
death of the late lamented Professor Moriarty."

"I can hardly think that you would find many decent citizens to agree
with you," I answered.

"Well, well, I must not be selfish," said he, with a smile, as he pushed
back his chair from the breakfast-table. "The community is certainly
the gainer, and no one the loser, save the poor out-of-work specialist,
whose occupation has gone. With that man in the field, one's morning
paper presented infinite possibilities. Often it was only the smallest
trace, Watson, the faintest indication, and yet it was enough to tell me
that the great malignant brain was there, as the gentlest tremors of
the edges of the web remind one of the foul spider which lurks in the
centre. Petty thefts, wanton assaults, purposeless outrage--to the man
who held the clue all could be worked into one connected whole. To the
scientific student of the higher criminal world, no capital in Europe
offered the advantages which London then possessed. But now----" He
shrugged his shoulders in humorous deprecation of the state of things
which he had himself done so much to produce.

At the time of which I speak, Holmes had been back for some months,
and I at his request had sold my practice and returned to share the old
quarters in Baker Street. A young doctor, named Verner, had purchased my
small Kensington practice, and given with astonishingly little demur the
highest price that I ventured to ask--an incident which only explained
itself some years later, when I found that Verner was a distant relation
of Holmes, and that it was my friend who had really found the money.

Our months of partnership had not been so uneventful as he had stated,
for I find, on looking over my notes, that this period includes the case
of the papers of ex-President Murillo, and also the shocking affair of
the Dutch steamship FRIESLAND, which so nearly cost us both our lives.
His cold and proud nature was always averse, however, from anything
in the shape of public applause, and he bound me in the most
stringent terms to say no further word of himself, his methods, or his
successes--a prohibition which, as I have explained, has only now been
removed.