The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes / Приключения Шерлока Холмса. Артур Конан Дойл
in despair.
It was a quarter past nine when I started from home and made my way across the Park, and so through Oxford Street to Baker Street. As I entered the passage, I heard the sound of voices from above. On entering his room, I found Holmes talking to two men, one of whom I recognized as Peter Jones, the official police agent; while the other was a long, thin, sad-faced man, with a very shiny hat and oppressively respectable frock-coat.
“Ha! Our party is complete,” said Holmes, taking his heavy hunting crop from the rack. “Watson, I think you know Mr. Jones, of Scotland Yard? Let me introduce you to Mr. Merryweather, who is to be our companion in to-night’s adventure.”
I looked at the men.
“I think, you will play for a higher stake tonight than you have ever done yet,” said Sherlock Holmes, “and the play will be more exciting. For you, Mr. Merryweather, the stake will be some thirty thousand pounds; and for you, Jones, it will be the man you want to catch.”
“John Clay, the murderer, thief, smasher and forger. He’s a remarkable man, that young John Clay. His grandfather was a Royal Duke, and he himself has been to Eton and Oxford. I’ve been on his track for years, and have never seen him yet.”
“I hope that I may have the pleasure of introducing you tonight. It is past ten, however, and quite time that we started. If you two will take the first cab, Watson and I will follow in the second.”
Sherlock Holmes was not very communicative during the long drive. We went through an endless labyrinth of gas-lit streets until we emerged into Farrington Street.
“We are close there now,” my friend remarked. “This fellow Merryweather is a bank director, and personally interested in the matter. Jones is not a bad fellow, though an absolute imbecile in his profession. He has one positive virtue. He is as brave as a bulldog, and as tenacious as a lobster if he gets his claws upon anyone. Here we are, and they are waiting for us.”
We had reached the same crowded street in which we had found ourselves in the morning. Our cabs were dismissed, and, following the guidance of Mr. Merryweather, we passed down a narrow passage, and through a side door, which he opened for us. Within there was a small corridor, which ended in a very massive iron gate. This also was opened, and led down a flight of winding stone steps, which terminated at another formidable gate. Mr. Merryweather stopped to light a lantern, and then conducted us down a dark, earth-smelling passage, and so, after opening a third door, into a huge vault or cellar, which was piled all round with crates and massive boxes.
Holmes fell upon his knees upon the floor, and, with the lantern and a magnifying lens, began to examine minutely the cracks between the stones. A few seconds sufficed to satisfy him, for he sprang to his feet again, and put his glass in his pocket.
“We have at least an hour before us,” he remarked. “We are at present, Doctor, in the cellar of the City branch of one of the principal London banks. Mr. Merryweather is the chairman of directors.”
“It is our French gold,” whispered the director.
“Your French gold?”
“Yes. Some months ago we borrowed thirty thousand napoleons from the Bank of France. They are still lying in our cellar.”
“Mr. Merryweather,” observed Holmes, “we must put the screen over that dark lantern.”
“And sit in the dark?”
“I am afraid so. And, first of all, we must choose our positions. I shall stand behind this crate, and you will conceal yourselves behind those. Then, when I flash a light upon the criminals, catch them. If they fire, Watson, shoot them down.”
I placed my revolver upon the top of the wooden case behind which I crouched.
“They have but one retreat,” whispered Holmes. “That is back through the house into Coburg Square. I hope that you have done what I asked you, Jones?”
“I have an inspector and two officers waiting at the front door.”
“So now we must be silent and wait.”
Suddenly my eyes caught the glint of a light. At first it was a lurid spark upon the stone pavement. Then it lengthened out until it became a yellow line, and then, without any warning or sound, a gash seemed to open and a hand appeared, a white, almost womanly hand.
With a rending, tearing sound, one of the broad, white stones turned over upon its side and left a square, gaping hole, through which streamed the light of a lantern. Over the edge there peeped a clean-cut, boyish face, which looked keenly about it, and then, with a hand on either side of the aperture, drew itself shoulder high and waist high, until one knee rested upon the edge. In another instant he stood at the side of the hole, and was hauling after him a companion, lithe and small like himself, with a pale face and a shock of very red hair.
“It’s all clear,” he whispered. “Have you the chisel and the bags? Jump, Archie, jump!”
Sherlock Holmes had sprung out and seized the intruder by the collar. The other dived down the hole, and I heard the sound of rending cloth as Jones tried to catch him. The light flashed upon the barrel of a revolver, but Holmes’s hunting crop came down on the man’s wrist, and the pistol clinked upon the stone floor.
“It’s no use, John Clay,” said Holmes blandly. “You have no chance at all.”
“So I see,” the other answered, with the utmost coolness. “I fancy that my pal is all right.”
“There are three men waiting for him at the door,” said Holmes.
“Oh, indeed. I must compliment you.”
“And I you,” Holmes answered. “Your red-headed idea was very new and effective.”
“You’ll see your pal again presently,” said Jones. “He’s quicker at climbing down holes than I am.”
“I beg that you will not touch me with your filthy hands,” remarked our prisoner, as the handcuffs clattered upon his wrists. “You may not be aware that I have royal blood in my veins. Have the goodness also when you address me always to say ’sir’ and ’please.’”
“All right,” said Jones. “Well, would you please, sir, march upstairs, where we can get a cab to carry your Highness to the police-station?”
“That is better,” said John Clay, serenely.
“Really, Mr. Holmes,” said Mr. Merryweather, as we followed them from the cellar, “I do not know how the bank can thank you or repay you.”
“I have been at some small expense over this matter, which I shall expect the bank to refund,” said Holmes, “but beyond that I am repaid by having had an experience which is in many ways unique, and by hearing the very remarkable narrative of the Red-headed League.”
“You see, Watson,” he explained in the morning as we sat over a glass of whisky and soda in Baker Street, “it was perfectly obvious from the beginning that the only possible object of this rather fantastic business of the advertisement of the League, and the copying of the ’Encyclopaedia,’ must be to get this pawnbroker out of the way for a number of hours every day. It was a curious way of managing it, but, really, it would be difficult to suggest a better. The four pounds a week was a lure which must draw him, and what was it to them, who were playing for thousands? They put in the advertisement, one rogue has the temporary office, the other rogue incites the man to apply for it, and together they manage to secure his absence every morning in the week. From the time that I heard of the assistant having come for half wages, it was obvious to me that he had some strong motive for it.”
“But how could you guess what the motive was?”
“I thought of the assistant’s fondness for photography, and his trick of vanishing into the cellar. The cellar! There was the end of this clue. He was doing something in the cellar-something which took many hours a day. What could it be? Of course, he was running a tunnel to some other building.
“When we went to visit the scene of action, I surprised you by beating upon the pavement with my stick. I was ascertaining