A Study in Sherlock. Raymond G. Farney
expression when moved to anger. He sat now with his handcuffed hands upon his lap, and his head sunk upon his breast, while he looked with his keen, twinkling eyes at the box which had been the cause of his ill-doings.”“I am a Worcestershire man myself, born near Pershore. I dare say you would find a heap of Smalls living there now if you were to look. I have often thought of taking a look around there, but the truth is I was never much of a credit to the family, and I doubt they would be so very glad to see me. They were all steady, chapel-going folk, small farmers, well known and respected over the countryside, while I was always a bit of a rover. At last, however, when I was about eighteen, I gave them no more trouble, for I got into a mess over a girl and could only get out of it again by taking the Queen’s shilling and joining the Third Buffs, which was just starting for India. I wasn’t destined to do much soldiering, however, I had just got past the goose-step and learned to handle my musket, when I was fool enough to go swimming in the Ganges—a crocodile took me just as I was halfway across and nipped off my right leg as clean as a surgeon could have done it, just above the knee.”While imprisoned in Andaman’s, Blair Island, he was a privileged person, worked dispensing drugs for the surgeon, living mostly on his own in a hut at Hope Town on the slopes of Mount Harriet.Tonga. “There are features of interest about this ally (Tonga). He lifts the case from the regions of the commonplace. I fancy that this ally breaks fresh ground in the annals of crime in this country.”“Beside Small lay a dark mass, which looked like a Newfoundland dog. It straightened itself into a black man—the smallest I have ever seen—with a great, misshapen head and a shock of tangled, disheveled hair. Holmes had already drawn his revolver, and I whipped out mine at the sight of this savage, distorted creature. He was wrapped in some sort of dark ulster of blanket, which left only his face exposed, but that face was enough to give a man a sleepless night. Never have I seen features so deeply marked with all bestiality and cruelty. His small eyes glowed and burned with a somber light, and his thick lips were writhed back from his teeth, which grinned and chattered at us with half animal fury.—A unhallowed dwarf with his hideous face, and his strong yellow teeth gnashing at us in the light of our lantern.”“You’ll find the treasure where the key is and where little Tonga is.”“He was sick to death and had gone to a lonely place to die. I took him in hand, though he was as venomous as a young snake, and after a couple of months I got him all right and able to walk. He took a kind of fancy to me then, and would hardly go back to his woods, but was always hanging about my hut. I learned a little of his lingo from him, and this made him all the fonder of me. Tonga—for that was his name—was a fine boatman and owned a big, roomy canoe of his own.”“He was staunch and true, was little Tonga. No man ever had a more faithful mate.”“We earned a living at this time by my exhibiting poor Tonga at fairs and other such places as a black cannibal. He would eat raw meat and dance his war-dance: so we always had a hatful of pennies after a day’s work.”
Punishment:Jonathan Small, “I never raised a hand against Mr. Sholto. It was the little hell-hound, Tonga, who shot one of his cursed darts into him. I had no part in it, sir.”“You must make a clean breast of it, for if you do I hope that I may be of use to you. I think I can prove that the poison acts so quickly that the man was dead before ever you reached the room.”“I, who have a fair claim to half a million of money, should spend the first half of my life building a breakwater in the Andaman’s, and am like to spend the other half digging drains at Dartmoor.”“Whatever punishment was in store for him, I felt that he might expect no sympathy from me, Sherlock Holmes and Jones.”Tonga, “Fire if he raises his hand,” said Holmes.—Even as we looked he plucked out from under the covering a short, round piece of wood, like a school-ruler, and clapped it to his lips; our pistols rang out together. He whirled round, threw up his arms, and with a kind of choking cough, fell sideways into the stream. I caught a glimpse of his venomous, menacing eyes amid the white swirl of the waters.—Somewhere in the dark ooze at the bottom of the Thames lie the bones of that strange visitor to our shores.Murder of Achmet; Jonathan Small “Was condemned to death, though my sentence was afterwards community to the same as the others.”The three Sikhs, penal servitude for life.
Official Police:Mr. Athelney Jones, Scotland Yard Inspector.“When Gregson, or Lestrade, or Athelney Jones are out of their depths—which, by the way is their normal state—the matter is laid before me.”“By the way, apropos of this Norwood business, you see that they had, as I surmised, a confederate in the house, who could be none other than Lal Rao, the butler: so Jones actually has the undivided honor of having caught one fish in his great haul.”“The division seems rather unfair,” I remarked. “You have done all the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit, pray what remains for you?” “For me,” said Sherlock Holmes, “there still remains the cocaine-bottle.” And he stretched his long white hand up for it.“A very stout, portly man in a gray suit strode heavily into the room. He was red-face, burly, and plethoric, with a pair of very small twinkling eyes which looked keenly out from between swollen and puffy pouches.”Said the fat detective pompously.—“He can find something,” remarked Holmes, shrugging his shoulders; “he has occasionally glimmerings of reason. Il n’y a pas des sots si incommodes que ceux qui ont de l’esprit!”“Your presence will be a great service to me,” he answered. “We shall work the case out independently and leave this fellow Jones to exult over any mare’s-nest which he may choose to construct.”“No. I should probably call Athelney Jones in at the last moment. He is not a bad fellow, and I should not like to do anything which would injure him professionally. But I have a fancy for working it out myself now that we have gone so far.”“Very different was he, however, from the brusque and masterful professor of common sense who had taken over the case so confidently at Upper Norwood. His expression was downcast, and his bearing meek and even apologetic.”“Athelney Jones proved to be a sociable soul in his hours of relaxation and faced his dinner with the air of a bon vivant.”Sergeant who accompanied Jones when first arrived at the crime scene.A buff, genial inspector who accompanied Watson with the treasure, after Small’s capture, to Mrs. Forrester’s home to see Miss Morstan.Sam Brown, one of the inspectors on the police launch.Two inspectors waited in the cab at Baker St. for Jones and Small to come out and go to Scotland Yard.
Characters:Thaddeus Sholto, son of Major Sholto, and twin brother to Bartholomew. Placed ad to locate Mary Morstan & told story about their father’s involvement.— “A small man with a very high head, a bristle of red hair all around the fringe of it, and a bald shining scalp which shot out from among it like a mountain-peak from fir-trees. He writhed his hands together as he stood, and his features were in a perpetual jerk—now smiling, now scowling, but never for an instant in repose. Nature had given him a pendulous lip, and two visible lines of yellow and irregular teeth, which he strove to conceal by constantly passing his hands over the lower part of his face. In spite of his obtrusive boldness he gave the impression of youth. In point of fact, he had just turned his thirtieth year.”“Blinked at us inquiringly with his weak, watery blue eyes.”“A very long befogged topcoat with Astrakhan collar and cuffs. This he buttoned tightly up in spite of the extreme closeness of the night and finished his attire by putting on a rabbit-skin cap with hanging lappets which covered the ears, so that no part of him was visible save the mobile and peaky face.”“It is for Mr. Thaddeus Sholto that I am anxious,” she said. “Nothing else is of any consequence; but I think that he has behaved most kindly and honorably throughout. It is our duty to clear him of this dreadful and unfounded charge.”The Baker Street Irregulars. The Baker Street division of the detective police force. I could hear Mrs. Hudson, raising her voice in a wail of expostulation and dismay.— “It is the unofficial force—the Baker Street irregulars.” As he spoke there came a swift pattering of naked feet upon the stairs, a clatter of high voices, and in rushed a dozen dirty and ragged little street Arabs. There was some show of discipline among them, despite their tumultuous entry, for they instantly drew up in line and stood facing us with expectant faces. One of their number, taller and older than the others, stood forward with an air of lounging superiority which was very funny in such a disreputable little scarecrow.“They can go everywhere, and see everything, overhear everyone.”“My boys had been up the river and down the river without result.”Wiggins “That wire was to my dirty little lieutenant, Wiggins, and I expect that he and his gang will be with us before we have finished our breakfast.” -----“One of their number, taller and older than the others, stood forward with an air of lounging superiority