The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893

V >> Various >> The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11

As I glanced up from reading this enigmatical message I saw Holmes
chuckling at the expression upon my face.

"You look a little bewildered," said he.

"I cannot see how such a message as this could inspire horror. It seems
to me to be rather grotesque than otherwise."

"Very likely. Yet the fact remains that the reader, who was a fine,
robust old man, was knocked clean down by it, as if it had been the
butt-end of a pistol."

"You arouse my curiosity," said I. "But why did you say just now that
there were very particular reasons why I should study this case?"

"Because it was the first in which I was ever engaged."

I had often endeavoured to elicit from my companion what had first
turned his mind in the direction of criminal research, but I had never
caught him before in a communicative humour. Now he sat forward in his
armchair, and spread out the documents upon his knees. Then he lit his
pipe and sat for some time smoking and turning them over.

"You never heard me talk of Victor Trevor?" he asked. "He was the only
friend I made during the two years that I was at college. I was never a
very sociable fellow, Watson, always rather fond of moping in my rooms
and working out my own little methods of thought, so that I never mixed
much with the men of my year. Bar fencing and boxing I had few athletic
tastes, and then my line of study was quite distinct from that of the
other fellows, so that we had no points of contact at all. Trevor was
the only man I knew, and that only through the accident of his
bull-terrier freezing on to my ankle one morning as I went down to
chapel.

"It was a prosaic way of forming a friendship, but it was effective. I
was laid by the heels for ten days, and Trevor used to come in to
inquire after me. At first it was only a minute's chat, but soon his
visits lengthened, and before the end of the term we were close friends.
He was a hearty, full-blooded fellow, full of spirits and energy, the
very opposite to me in most respects; but we found we had some subjects
in common, and it was a bond of union when I found that he was as
friendless as I. Finally, he invited me down to his father's place at
Donnithorpe, in Norfolk, and I accepted his hospitality for a month of
the long vacation.

"Old Trevor was evidently a man of some wealth and consideration, a J.P.
and a landed proprietor. Donnithorpe is a little hamlet just to the
north of Langmere, in the country of the Broads. The house was an
old-fashioned, wide-spread, oak-beamed, brick building, with a fine
lime-lined avenue leading up to it. There was excellent wild duck
shooting in the fens, remarkably good fishing, a small but select
library, taken over, as I understood, from a former occupant, and a
tolerable cook, so that it would be a fastidious man who could not put
in a pleasant month there.

"Trevor senior was a widower, and my friend was his only son. There had
been a daughter, I heard, but she had died of diphtheria while on a
visit to Birmingham. The father interested me extremely. He was a man of
little culture, but with a considerable amount of rude strength both
physically and mentally. He knew hardly any books, but he had travelled
far, had seen much of the world, and had remembered all that he had
learned. In person he was a thick-set, burly man, with a shock of
grizzled hair, a brown, weather-beaten face, and blue eyes which were
keen to the verge of fierceness. Yet he had a reputation for kindness
and charity on the country side, and was noted for the leniency of his
sentences from the bench.

[Illustration: "TREVOR USED TO COME IN TO INQUIRE AFTER ME."]

"One evening, shortly after my arrival, we were sitting over a glass of
port after dinner, when young Trevor began to talk about those habits of
observation and inference which I had already formed into a system,
although I had not yet appreciated the part which they were to play in
my life. The old man evidently thought that his son was exaggerating in
his description of one or two trivial feats which I had performed.

"'Come now, Mr. Holmes,' said he, laughing good-humouredly, 'I'm an
excellent subject, if you can deduce anything from me.'

"'I fear there is not very much,' I answered. 'I might suggest that you
have gone about in fear of some personal attack within the last twelve
months.'

"The laugh faded from his lips and he stared at me in great surprise.

"'Well, that's true enough,' said he. 'You know, Victor,' turning to his
son, 'when we broke up that poaching gang, they swore to knife us; and
Sir Edward Hoby has actually been attacked. I've always been on my guard
since then, though I have no idea how you know it.'

"'You have a very handsome stick,' I answered. 'By the inscription, I
observed that you had not had it more than a year. But you have taken
some pains to bore the head of it and pour melted lead into the hole, so
as to make it a formidable weapon. I argued that you would not take such
precautions unless you had some danger to fear.'

"'Anything else?' he asked, smiling.

"'You have boxed a good deal in your youth.'

"'Right again. How did you know it? Is my nose knocked a little out of
the straight?'

"'No,' said I. 'It is your ears. They have the peculiar flattening and
thickening which marks the boxing man.'

"'Anything else?'

"'You have done a great deal of digging, by your callosities.'

"'Made all my money at the gold-fields.'

"'You have been in New Zealand.'

"'Right again.'

"'You have visited Japan.'

"'Quite true.'

"'And you have been most intimately associated with someone whose
initials were J. A., and whom you afterwards were eager to entirely
forget.'

"Mr. Trevor stood slowly up, fixed his large blue eyes upon me with a
strange, wild stare, and then pitched forward with his face among the
nutshells which strewed the cloth, in a dead faint.

"You can imagine, Watson, how shocked both his son and I were. His
attack did not last long, however, for when we undid his collar and
sprinkled the water from one of the finger-glasses over his face, he
gave a gasp or two and sat up.

"'Ah, boys!' said he, forcing a smile. 'I hope I haven't frightened you.
Strong as I look, there is a weak place in my heart, and it does not
take much to knock me over. I don't know how you manage this, Mr.
Holmes, but it seems to me that all the detectives of fact and of fancy
would be children in your hands. That's your line of life, sir, and you
may take the word of a man who has seen something of the world.'

"And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability
with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the very
first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be made out
of what had up to that time been the merest hobby. At the moment,
however, I was too much concerned at the sudden illness of my host to
think of anything else.

"'I hope that I have said nothing to pain you,' said I.

"'Well, you certainly touched upon rather a tender point. Might I ask
how you know and how much you know?' He spoke now in a half jesting
fashion, but a look of terror still lurked at the back of his eyes.

"'It is simplicity itself,' said I. 'When you bared your arm to draw
that fish into the boat I saw that "J. A." had been tattooed in the bend
of the elbow. The letters were still legible, but it was perfectly clear
from their blurred appearance, and from the staining of the skin round
them, that efforts had been made to obliterate them. It was obvious,
then, that those initials had once been very familiar to you, and that
you had afterwards wished to forget them.'

"'What an eye you have!' he cried, with a sigh of relief. 'It is just as
you say. But we won't talk of it. Of all ghosts, the ghosts of our old
loves are the worst. Come into the billiard-room and have a quiet
cigar.'

"From that day, amid all his cordiality, there was always a touch of
suspicion in Mr. Trevor's manner towards me. Even his son remarked it.
'You've given the governor such a turn,' said he, 'that he'll never be
sure again of what you know and what you don't know.' He did not mean to
show it, I am sure, but it was so strongly in his mind that it peeped
out at every action. At last I became so convinced that I was causing
him uneasiness, that I drew my visit to a close. On the very day,
however, before I left an incident occurred which proved in the sequel
to be of importance.

"We were sitting out upon the lawn on garden chairs, the three of us,
basking in the sun and admiring the view across the Broads, when the
maid came out to say that there was a man at the door who wanted to see
Mr. Trevor.

"'What is his name?' asked my host.

"'He would not give any.'

"'What does he want, then?'

"'He says that you know him, and that he only wants a moment's
conversation.'

"'Show him round here.' An instant afterwards there appeared a little
wizened fellow, with a cringing manner and a shambling style of walking.
He wore an open jacket, with a splotch of tar on the sleeve, a red and
black check shirt, dungaree trousers, and heavy boots badly worn. His
face was thin and brown and crafty, with a perpetual smile upon it,
which showed an irregular line of yellow teeth, and his crinkled hands
were half-closed in a way that is distinctive of sailors. As he came
slouching across the lawn I heard Mr. Trevor make a sort of hiccoughing
noise in his throat, and, jumping out of his chair, he ran into the
house. He was back in a moment, and I smelt a strong reek of brandy as
he passed me.

"'Well, my man,' said he, 'what can I do for you?'

"The sailor stood looking at him with puckered eyes, and with the same
loose-lipped smile upon his face.

"'You don't know me?' he asked.

"'Why, dear me, it is surely Hudson!' said Mr. Trevor, in a tone of
surprise.

"'Hudson it is, sir,' said the seaman. 'Why, it's thirty year and more
since I saw you last. Here you are in your house, and me still picking
my salt meat out of the harness cask.'

"'Tut, you will find that I have not forgotten old times,' cried Mr.
Trevor, and, walking towards the sailor, he said something in a low
voice. 'Go into the kitchen,' he continued out loud, 'and you will get
food and drink. I have no doubt that I shall find you a situation.'

"'Thank you, sir,' said the seaman, touching his forelock. 'I'm just off
a two-yearer in an eight-knot tramp, short-handed at that, and I wants a
rest. I thought I'd get it either with Mr. Beddoes or with you.'

"'Ah!' cried Mr. Trevor, 'you know where Mr. Beddoes is?'

"'Bless you, sir, I know where all my old friends are,' said the fellow,
with a sinister smile, and slouched off after the maid to the kitchen.
Mr. Trevor mumbled something to us about having been shipmates with the
man when he was going back to the diggings, and then, leaving us on the
lawn, he went indoors. An hour later, when we entered the house we found
him stretched dead drunk upon the dining-room sofa. The whole incident
left a most ugly impression upon my mind, and I was not sorry next day
to leave Donnithorpe behind me, for I felt that my presence must be a
source of embarrassment to my friend.

[Illustration: "'HUDSON IT IS, SIR,' SAID THE SEAMAN."]

"All this occurred during the first month of the long vacation. I went
up to my London rooms, where I spent seven weeks working out a few
experiments in organic chemistry. One day, however, when the autumn was
far advanced and the vacation drawing to a close, I received a telegram
from my friend imploring me to return to Donnithorpe, and saying that he
was in great need of my advice and assistance. Of course I dropped
everything, and set out for the north once more.

"He met me with the dog-cart at the station, and I saw at a glance that
the last two months had been very trying ones for him. He had grown thin
and careworn, and had lost the loud, cheery manner for which he had been
remarkable.

"'The governor is dying,' were the first words he said.

"'Impossible!' I cried. 'What is the matter?'

"'Apoplexy. Nervous shock. He's been on the verge all day. I doubt if we
shall find him alive.'

"I was, as you may think, Watson, horrified at this unexpected news.

"'What has caused it?' I asked.

"'Ah, that is the point. Jump in, and we can talk it over while we
drive. You remember that fellow who came upon the evening before you
left us?'

"'Perfectly.'

"'Do you know who it was that we let into the house that day?'

"'I have no idea.'

"'It was the Devil, Holmes!' he cried.

"I stared at him in astonishment.

"'Yes; it was the Devil himself. We have not had a peaceful hour
since--not one. The governor has never held up his head from that
evening, and now the life has been crushed out of him, and his heart
broken all through this accursed Hudson.'

"'What power had he, then?'

"'Ah! that is what I would give so much to know. The kindly, charitable,
good old governor! How could he have fallen into the clutches of such a
ruffian? But I am so glad that you have come, Holmes. I trust very much
to your judgment and discretion, and I know that you will advise me for
the best.'

"We were dashing along the smooth, white country road, with the long
stretch of the Broads in front of us glimmering in the red light of the
setting sun. From a grove upon our left I could already see the high
chimneys and the flagstaff which marked the squire's dwelling.

"'My father made the fellow gardener,' said my companion, 'and then, as
that did not satisfy him, he was promoted to be butler. The house seemed
to be at his mercy, and he wandered about and did what he chose in it.
The maids complained of his drunken habits and his vile language. The
dad raised their wages all round to recompense them for the annoyance.
The fellow would take the boat and my father's best gun and treat
himself to little shooting parties. And all this with such a sneering,
leering, insolent face, that I would have knocked him down twenty times
over if he had been a man of my own age. I tell you, Holmes, I have had
to keep a tight hold upon myself all this time, and now I am asking
myself whether, if I had let myself go a little more, I might not have
been a wiser man.

"'Well, matters went from bad to worse with us, and this animal, Hudson,
became more and more intrusive, until at last, on his making some
insolent reply to my father in my presence one day, I took him by the
shoulder and turned him out of the room. He slunk away with a livid
face, and two venomous eyes which uttered more threats than his tongue
could do. I don't know what passed between the poor dad and him after
that, but the dad came to me next day and asked me whether I would mind
apologizing to Hudson. I refused, as you can imagine, and asked my
father how he could allow such a wretch to take such liberties with
himself and his household.

"'Ah, my boy,' said he, 'it is all very well to talk, but you don't know
how I am placed. But you shall know, Victor. I'll see that you shall
know, come what may! You wouldn't believe harm of your poor old father,
would you, lad?' He was very much moved, and shut himself up in the
study all day, where I could see through the window that he was writing
busily.

"'That evening there came what seemed to me to be a grand release, for
Hudson told us that he was going to leave us. He walked into the
dining-room as we sat after dinner, and announced his intention in the
thick voice of a half-drunken man.

"'I've had enough of Norfolk,' said he. 'I'll run down to Mr. Beddoes,
in Hampshire. He'll be as glad to see me as you were, I daresay.'

"'You're not going away in an unkind spirit, Hudson, I hope,' said my
father, with a tameness which made my blood boil.

"'I've not had my 'pology," said he, sulkily, glancing in my direction.

[Illustration: "'I'VE NOT HAD MY 'POLOGY,' SAID HE, SULKILY."]

"'Victor, you will acknowledge that you have used this worthy fellow
rather roughly?' said the dad, turning to me.

"'On the contrary, I think that we have both shown extraordinary
patience towards him,' I answered.

"'Oh, you do, do you?' he snarled. 'Very good, mate. We'll see about
that!' He slouched out of the room, and half an hour afterwards left the
house, leaving my father in a state of pitiable nervousness. Night after
night I heard him pacing his room, and it was just as he was recovering
his confidence that the blow did at last fall.

"'And how?' I asked, eagerly.

"'In a most extraordinary fashion. A letter arrived for my father
yesterday evening, bearing the Fordingbridge postmark. My father read
it, clapped both his hands to his head and began running round the room
in little circles like a man who has been driven out of his senses. When
I at last drew him down on to the sofa, his mouth and eyelids were all
puckered on one side, and I saw that he had a stroke. Dr. Fordham came
over at once, and we put him to bed; but the paralysis has spread, he
has shown no sign of returning consciousness, and I think that we shall
hardly find him alive.'

"'You horrify me, Trevor!' I cried. 'What, then, could have been in this
letter to cause so dreadful a result?'

"'Nothing. There lies the inexplicable part of it. The message was
absurd and trivial. Ah, my God, it is as I feared!'

"As he spoke we came round the curve of the avenue, and saw in the
fading light that every blind in the house had been drawn down. As we
dashed up to the door, my friend's face convulsed with grief, a
gentleman in black emerged from it.

"'When did it happen, doctor?' asked Trevor.

"'Almost immediately after you left.'

"'Did he recover consciousness?'

"'For an instant before the end.'

"'Any message for me?'

"'Only that the papers were in the back drawer of the Japanese cabinet.'

"My friend ascended with the doctor to the chamber of death, while I
remained in the study, turning the whole matter over and over in my
head, and feeling as sombre as ever I had done in my life. What was the
past of this Trevor: pugilist, traveller, and gold-digger; and how had
he placed himself in the power of this acid-faced seaman? Why, too,
should he faint at an allusion to the half-effaced initials upon his
arm, and die of fright when he had a letter from Fordingbridge? Then I
remembered that Fordingbridge was in Hampshire, and that this Mr.
Beddoes, whom the seaman had gone to visit, and presumably to blackmail,
had also been mentioned as living in Hampshire. The letter, then, might
either come from Hudson, the seaman, saying that he had betrayed the
guilty secret which appeared to exist, or it might come from Beddoes,
warning an old confederate that such a betrayal was imminent. So far it
seemed clear enough. But, then, how could the letter be trivial and
grotesque, as described by the son? He must have misread it. If so, it
must have been one of those ingenious secret codes which mean one thing
while they seem to mean another. I must see this letter. If there were a
hidden meaning in it, I was confident that I could pluck it forth. For
an hour I sat pondering over it in the gloom, until at last a weeping
maid brought in a lamp, and close at her heels came my friend Trevor,
pale but composed, with these very papers which lie upon my knee held in
his grasp. He sat down opposite to me, drew the lamp to the edge of the
table, and handed me a short note scribbled, as you see, upon a single
sheet of grey paper. 'The supply of game for London is going steadily
up,' it ran. 'Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to
receive all orders for fly-paper and for preservation of your hen
pheasant's life.'

"I daresay my face looked as bewildered as yours did just now when first
I read this message. Then I re-read it very carefully. It was evidently
as I had thought, and some second meaning must lie buried in this
strange combination of words. Or could it be that there was a
prearranged significance to such phrases as 'fly-paper' and 'hen
pheasant'? Such a meaning would be arbitrary, and could not be deduced
in any way. And yet I was loth to believe that this was the case, and
the presence of the word 'Hudson' seemed to show that the subject of the
message was as I had guessed, and that it was from Beddoes rather than
the sailor. I tried it backwards, but the combination, 'Life pheasant's
hen,' was not encouraging. Then I tried alternate words, but neither
'The of for' nor 'supply game London' promised to throw any light upon
it. And then in an instant the key of the riddle was in my hands, and I
saw that every third word beginning with the first would give a message
which might well drive old Trevor to despair.

[Illustration: "THE KEY OF THE RIDDLE WAS IN MY HANDS."]

"It was short and terse, the warning, as I now read it to my
companion:--

"'The game is up. Hudson has told all. Fly for your life.'

"Victor Trevor sank his face into his shaking hands. 'It must he that, I
suppose,' said he. 'This is worse than death, for it means disgrace as
well. But what is the meaning of these "head-keepers" and "hen
pheasants"?

"'It means nothing to the message, but it might mean a good deal to us
if we had no other means of discovering the sender. You see that he has
begun by writing, "The ... game ... is," and so on. Afterwards he had,
to fulfil the prearranged cipher, to fill in any two words in each
space. He would naturally use the first words which came to his mind,
and if there were so many which referred to sport among them, you may be
tolerably sure that he is either an ardent shot or interested in
breeding. Do you know anything of this Beddoes?'

"'Why, now that you mention it,' said he, 'I remember that my poor
father used to have an invitation from him to shoot over his preserves
every autumn.'

"'Then it is undoubtedly from him that the note comes,' said I. 'It only
remains for us to find out what this secret was which the sailor Hudson
seems to have held over the heads of these two wealthy and respected
men.'

"'Alas, Holmes, I fear that it is one of sin and shame!' cried my
friend. 'But from you I shall have no secrets. Here is the statement
which was drawn up by my father when he knew that the danger from Hudson
had become imminent. I found it in the Japanese cabinet, as he told the
doctor. Take it and read it to me, for I have neither the strength nor
the courage to do it myself.'

"These are the very papers, Watson, which he handed to me, and I will
read them to you as I read them in the old study that night to him. They
are indorsed outside, as you see: 'Some particulars of the voyage of the
barque _Gloria Scott_, from her leaving Falmouth on the 8th October,
1855, to her destruction in N. lat. 15 deg. 20', W. long. 25 deg. 14', on
November 6th.' It is in the form of a letter, and runs in this way:--

"My dear, dear son,--Now that approaching disgrace begins to darken the
closing years of my life, I can write with all truth and honesty that it
is not the terror of the law, it is not the loss of my position in the
county, nor is it my fall in the eyes of all who have known me, which
cuts me to the heart; but it is the thought that you should come to
blush for me--you who love me, and who have seldom, I hope, had reason
to do other than respect me. But if the blow falls which is for ever
hanging over me, then I should wish you to read this that you may know
straight from me how far I have been to blame. On the other hand, if all
should go well (which may kind God Almighty grant!), then if by any
chance this paper should be still undestroyed, and should fall into
your hands, I conjure you by all you hold sacred, by the memory of your
dear mother, and by the love which has been between us, to hurl it into
the fire, and to never give one thought to it again.

"If, then, your eye goes on to read this line, I know that I shall
already have been exposed and dragged from my home, or, as is more
likely--for you know that my heart is weak--be lying with my tongue
sealed for ever in death. In either case the time for suppression is
past, and every word which I tell you is the naked truth; and this I
swear as I hope for mercy.

"My name, dear lad, is not Trevor. I was James Armitage in my younger
days, and you can understand now the shock that it was to me a few weeks
ago when your college friend addressed me in words which seemed to imply
that he had surmised my secret. As Armitage it was that I entered a
London banking house, and as Armitage I was convicted of breaking my
country's laws, and was sentenced to transportation. Do not think very
harshly of me, laddie. It was a debt of honour, so-called, which I had
to pay, and I used money which was not my own to do it, in the certainty
that I could replace it before there could be any possibility of its
being missed. But the most dreadful ill-luck pursued me. The money which
I had reckoned upon never came to hand, and a premature examination of
accounts exposed my deficit. The case might have been dealt leniently
with, but the laws were more harshly administered thirty years ago than
now, and on my twenty-third birthday I found myself chained as a felon
with thirty-seven other convicts in the 'tween decks of the barque
_Gloria Scott_, bound for Australia.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11