All day I was engaged in my professional work, and it waslate in the evening before I returned to Baker Street. SherlockHolmes had not come back yet. It was nearly ten o’clock beforehe entered, looking pale and worn. He walked up to the sideboard,and tearing a piece from the loaf he devoured it voraciously,washing it down with a long draught of water.
“You are hungry,” I remarked.
“Starving. It had escaped my memory. I have had nothing sincebreakfast.”
“Nothing?”
“Not a bite. I had no time to think of it.”
“And how have you succeeded?”
“Well.”
“You have a clue?”
“I have them in the hollow of my hand. Young Openshaw shallnot long remain unavenged. Why, Watson, let us put their owndevilish trade-mark upon them. It is well thought of!”
“What do you mean?”
He took an orange from the cupboard, and tearing it to pieceshe squeezed out the pips upon the table. Of these he took five andthrust them into an envelope. On the inside of the flap he wrote “S.
H. for J. O.” Then he sealed it and addressed it to “Captain JamesCalhoun, Bark Lone Star, Savannah, Georgia.”
“That will await him when he enters port,” said he, chuckling. “Itmay give him a sleepless night. He will find it as sure a precursorof his fate as Openshaw did before him.”
“And who is this Captain Calhoun?”
“The leader of the gang. I shall have the others, but he first.”
“How did you trace it, then?”
He took a large sheet of paper from his pocket, all covered withdates and names.
“I have spent the whole day,” said he, “over Lloyd’s registers andfiles of the old papers, following the future career of every vesselwhich touched at Pondicherry in January and February in ’83.
There were thirty-six ships of fair tonnage which were reportedthere during those months. Of these, one, the Lone Star, instantlyattracted my attention, since, although it was reported as havingcleared from London, the name is that which is given to one ofthe states of the Union.”
“Texas, I think.”
“I was not and am not sure which; but I knew that the shipmust have an American origin.”
“What then?”
“I searched the Dundee records, and when I found that thebarque Lone Star was there in January, ’85, my suspicion became acertainty. I then inquired as to the vessels which lay at present inthe port of London.”
“Yes?”
“The Lone Star had arrived here last week. I went down to theAlbert Dock and found that she had been taken down the river bythe early tide this morning, homeward bound to Savannah. I wiredto Gravesend and learned that she had passed some time ago, andas the wind is easterly I have no doubt that she is now past theGoodwins and not very far from the Isle of Wight.”
“What will you do, then?”
“Oh, I have my hand upon him. He and the two mates, are as Ilearn, the only native-born Americans in the ship. The others areFinns and Germans. I know, also, that they were all three awayfrom the ship last night. I had it from the stevedore who has beenloading their cargo. By the time that their sailing-ship reachesSavannah the mail-boat will have carried this letter, and thecable will have informed the police of Savannah that these threegentlemen are badly wanted here upon a charge of murder.”
There is ever a flaw, however, in the best laid of human plans,and the murderers of John Openshaw were never to receive theorange pips which would show them that another, as cunning andas resolute as themselves, was upon their track. Very long and verysevere were the equinoctial gales that year. We waited long fornews of the Lone Star of Savannah, but none ever reached us. Wedid at last hear that somewhere far out in the Atlantic a shatteredstern-post of a boat was seen swinging in the trough of a wave,with the letters “L. S.” carved upon it, and that is all which weshall ever know of the fate of the Lone Star.
The Man with the Twisted Lip
Isa Whitney, brother of the late Elias Whitney, D.D., Principalof the Theological College of St. George’s, was much addictedto opium. The habit grew upon him, as I understand, from somefoolish freak when he was at college; for having read De Quincey’sdescription of his dreams and sensations, he had drenched histobacco with laudanum in an attempt to produce the same effects.
He found, as so many more have done, that the practice is easierto attain than to get rid of, and for many years he continued tobe a slave to the drug, an object of mingled horror and pity to hisfriends and relatives. I can see him now, with yellow, pasty face,drooping lids, and pin-point pupils, all huddled in a chair, thewreck and ruin of a noble man.
One night—it was in June, ’89—there came a ring to my bell,about the hour when a man gives his first yawn and glances at theclock. I sat up in my chair, and my wife laid her needle-work downin her lap and made a little face of disappointment.
“A patient!” said she. “You’ll have to go out.”
I groaned, for I was newly come back from a weary day.
We heard the door open, a few hurried words, and then quicksteps upon the linoleum. Our own door flew open, and a lady, cladin some dark-coloured stuff, with a black veil, entered the room.
“You will excuse my calling so late,” she began, and then,suddenly losing her self-control, she ran forward, threw her armsabout my wife’s neck, and sobbed upon her shoulder. “Oh, I’m insuch trouble!” she cried; “I do so want a little help.”
“Why,” said my wife, pulling up her veil, “it is Kate Whitney.
How you startled me, Kate! I had not an idea who you were whenyou came in.”
“I didn’t know what to do, so I came straight to you.” That wasalways the way. Folk who were in grief came to my wife like birdsto a light-house.
“It was very sweet of you to come. Now, you must have somewine and water, and sit here comfortably and tell us all about it.
Or should you rather that I sent James off to bed?”
“Oh, no, no! I want the doctor’s advice and help, too. It’s aboutIsa. He has not been home for two days. I am so frightened abouthim!”