The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes

by Arthur Conan Doyle

“Yes.”

  “And it arrived very speedily?”

  “Within a minute or so.”

  “And yet when they arrived they found that the candle was out and that the lamp had been lighted. That seems very remarkable.”

  Again Barker showed some signs of indecision. “I don’t see that it was remarkable, Mr. Holmes,” he answered after a pause. “The candle threw a very bad light. My first thought was to get a better one. The lamp was on the table, so I lit it.”

  “And blew out the candle?”

  “Exactly.”

  Holmes asked no further question, and Barker, with a deliberate look from one to the other of us, which had, as it seemed to me, something of defiance in it, turned and left the room.

  Inspector MacDonald had sent up a note to the effect that he would wait upon Mrs. Douglas in her room, but she had replied that she would meet us in the dining-room. She entered now, a tall and beautiful woman of thirty, reserved and self-possessed to a remarkable degree, very different from the tragic and distracted figure I had pictured. It is true that her face was pale and drawn, like that of one who has endured a great shock, but her manner was composed, and the finely-moulded hand which she rested upon the edge of the table was as steady as my own. Her sad, appealing eyes travelled from one to the other of us with a curiously inquisitive expression. That questioning gaze transformed itself suddenly into abrupt speech.

  “Have you found anything out yet?” she asked.

  Was it my imagination that there was an undertone of fear rather than of hope in the question?

  “We have taken every possible step, Mrs. Douglas,” said the inspector. “You may rest assured that nothing will be neglected.”

  “Spare no money,” she said in a dead, even tone. “It is my desire that every possible effort should be made.”

  “Perhaps you can tell us something which may throw some light upon the matter.”

  “I fear not; but all I know is at your service.”

  “We have heard from Mr. Cecil Barker that you did not actually see—that you were never in the room where the tragedy occurred?”

  “No, he turned me back upon the stairs. He begged me to return to my room.”

  “Quite so. You had heard the shot, and you had at once come down.”

  “I put on my dressing-gown and then came down.”

  “How long was it after hearing the shot that you were stopped on the stair by Mr. Barker?”

  “It may have been a couple of minutes. It is so hard to reckon time at such a moment. He implored me not to go on. He assured me that I could do nothing. Then Mrs. Allen, the housekeeper, led me upstairs again. It was all like some dreadful dream.

  “Can you give us any idea how long your husband had been downstairs before you heard the shot?”

  “No, I cannot say. He went from his dressing room, and I did not hear him go. He did the round of the house every night, for he was nervous of fire. It is the only thing that I have ever known him nervous of.”

  “That is just the point which I want to come to, Mrs. Douglas. You have known your husband only in England, have you not?”

  “Yes, we have been married five years.”

  “Have you heard him speak of anything which occurred in America and might bring some danger upon him?”

  Mrs. Douglas thought earnestly before she answered. “Yes,” she said at last. “I have always felt that there was a danger hanging over him. He refused to discuss it with me. It was not from want of confidence in me—there was the most complete love and confidence between us—but it was out of his desire to keep all alarm away from me. He thought I should brood over it if I knew all, and so he was silent.”

  “How did you know it, then?”

  Mrs. Douglas’s face lit with a quick smile. “Can a husband ever carry about a secret all his life and a woman who loves him have no suspicion of it? I knew it by his refusal to talk about some episodes in his American life. I knew it by certain precautions he took. I knew it by certain words he let fall. I knew it by the way he looked at unexpected strangers. I was perfectly certain that he had some powerful enemies, that he believed they were on his track, and that he was always on his guard against them. I was so sure of it that for years I have been terrified if ever he came home later than was expected.”

  “ ‘Have you found out anything yet?’ she asked.”

  Frank Wiles, Strand Magazine, 1914

  “Might I ask,” asked Holmes, “what the words were which attracted your attention?”

  “The Valley of Fear,” the lady answered. “That was an expression he has used when I questioned him. ‘I have been in the Valley of Fear. I am not out of it yet.’—‘Are we never to get out of the Valley of Fear?’ I have asked him when I have seen him more serious than usual. ‘Sometimes I think that we never shall,’ he has answered.”

  “Surely you asked him what he meant by the Valley of Fear?”

  “I did; but his face would become very grave and he would shake his head. ‘It is bad enough that one of us should have been in its shadow,’ he said. ‘Please God it shall never fall upon you!’ It was some real valley in which he had lived and in which something terrible had occurred to him, of that I am certain; but I can tell you no more.”

  “And he never mentioned any names?”

  “Yes, he was delirious with fever once when he had his hunting accident three years ago. Then I remember that there was a name that came continually to his lips. He spoke it with anger and a sort of horror. McGinty was the name—Bodymaster McGinty. I asked him when he recovered who Bodymaster McGinty was, and whose body he was master of. ‘Never of mine, thank God!’ he answered with a laugh, and that was all I could get from him. But there is a connection between Bodymaster McGinty and the Valley of Fear.”

  “There is one other point,” said Inspector MacDonald. “You met Mr. Douglas in a boarding house in London, did you not, and became engaged to him there? Was there any romance, anything secret or mysterious, about the wedding?”

  “There was romance. There is always romance. There was nothing mysterious.”

  “He had no rival?”

  “No, I was quite free.”

  “You have heard, no doubt, that his wedding-ring has been taken. Does that suggest anything to you? Suppose that some enemy of his old life had tracked him down and committed this crime, what possible reason could he have for taking his wedding-ring?”

  For an instant I could have sworn that the faintest shadow of a smile flickered over the woman’s lips.

  “I really cannot tell,” she answered. “It is certainly a most extraordinary thing.”69

  “Well, we will not detain you any longer, and we are sorry to have put you to this trouble at such a time,” said the inspector. “There are some other points, no doubt; but we can refer to you as they arise.”

  She rose, and I was again conscious of that quick, questioning glance with which she had just surveyed us: “What impression has my evidence made upon you?” The question might as well have been spoken. Then, with a bow, she swept from the room.

  “She’s a beautiful woman—a very beautiful woman,” said MacDonald, thoughtfully, after the door had closed behind her. “This man Barker has certainly been down here a good deal. He is a man who might be attractive to a woman. He admits that the dead man was jealous, and maybe he knew best himself what cause he had for jealousy. Then there’s that wedding-ring. You can’t get past that. The man who tears a wedding-ring off a dead man’s—What do you say to it, Mr. Holmes?”

  “For an instant I could have sworn that the faintest shadow of a smile flickered over the woman’s lips.”

  Arthur I. Keller, Associated Sunday Magazines, 1914

  My friend had sat with his head upon his hands, sunk in the deepest thought. Now he rose and rang the bell. “Ames,” he said, when the butler entered, “where is Mr. Cecil Barker now?”

  “I’ll see, sir.”

  He came back in a moment to say that Mr. Barker was in the
garden.

  “Can you remember, Ames, what Mr. Barker had on his feet last night when you joined him in the study?”

  “Yes, Mr. Holmes. He had a pair of bedroom slippers. I brought him his boots when he went for the police.”

  “Where are the slippers now?”

  “They are still under the chair in the hall.”

  “Very good, Ames. It is, of course, important for us to know which tracks may be Mr. Barker’s and which from outside.”

  “Yes, sir. I may say that I noticed that the slippers were stained with blood—so indeed were my own.”

  “That is natural enough, considering the condition of the room. Very good, Ames. We will ring if we want you.”

  A few minutes later we were in the study. Holmes had brought with him the carpet slippers from the hall. As Ames had observed, the soles of both were dark with blood.

  “A faint shadow of a smile flickered over the woman’s lips.”

  Frederic Dorr Steele, Final Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Vol. I, 1952

  “Strange!” murmured Holmes, as he stood in the light of the window and examined them minutely. “Very strange indeed!”

  Stooping with one of his quick feline pounces, he placed the slipper upon the blood mark on the sill. It exactly corresponded. He smiled in silence at his colleagues.

  The inspector was transfigured with excitement. His native accent rattled like a stick upon railings.

  “Man,” he cried, “there’s not a doubt of it! Barker has just marked the window himself. It’s a good deal broader than any boot-mark. I mind that you said it was a splay foot, and here’s the explanation. But what’s the game, Mr. Holmes—what’s the game?”

  “He placed the slipper upon the blood-mark on the sill.”

  Frank Wiles, Strand Magazine, 1914

  “Ay, what’s the game?” my friend repeated, thoughtfully. White Mason chuckled and rubbed his fat hands together in his professional satisfaction. “I said it was a snorter!” he cried. “And a real snorter it is!”

  64 The Strand Magazine for November 1914 contains the following summary:

  The opening chapters of this new and thrilling adventure of Sherlock Holmes described the receipt by Holmes of a cipher message, from which he deduces that some devilry is intended against a man named Douglas, a rich country gentleman living at the Manor House, Birlstone, in Sussex, and that the danger is a pressing one. Almost as soon as he has deciphered the message he is visited by Inspector MacDonald, of Scotland Yard, who brings the news that Mr. Douglas has been murdered that morning [sic]. He asks Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to accompany him to Birlstone, where they are met by Mr. White Mason, the chief Sussex detective, from whom they learn the details of the crime. The murdered man had been horribly injured, while lying across his chest was a curious weapon—a shot-gun with the barrel sawn off a foot in front of the triggers. Near him was found a card with the initials “V. V.” and the number “341” scrawled on it in ink, and about half-way up the forearm was a curious design—a branded triangle inside a circle. All four then proceed to the Manor House, and, when the present instalment opens, are examining the room in which the crime occurred, accompanied by Mr. Cecil Barker, a friend of the Douglases, who has been staying with them.

  65 The American editions inexplicably omit the phrase “from Ireland.”

  66 Here and elsewhere in the English editions, “Swedish” appears in lieu of “German” connections. See note 114, below, for an explanation.

  67 Watson himself likely suffered from typhoid fever as a result of his service in the Second Afghan war. See A Study in Scarlet, note 18.

  68 Douglas must have frequented Chicago in the late 1860s and early 1870s, when it was already the second-largest city in the United States, a transporation hub dominated by stockyards and railroads. The Union Stock Yard, the city’s largest (eventually covering one square mile), was constructed by a consortium of nine railroad companies and opened on Christmas Day, 1865. Soon, meatpacking operations, eager to capitalise on the vast quantities of livestock now being brought in, had rushed to open in the stockyard’s surrounding neighbourhoods.

  The city’s economic growth was brought to a grinding halt when Chicago was devastated by the Great Fire of 1871, which one Mrs. O’Leary’s cow supposedly started by kicking over a lantern. The disaster rendered 90,000 people homeless and caused $200 million worth of property damage, plunging the city into a morass of poverty, unemployment, and crime. By 1875, Chicago had largely rebuilt itself, attracting a large immigrant population with new industries and changing inexorably the makeup and temperament of the city.

  Holmes and Watson encounter a former Chicagoan on at least one other occasion: in “The Dancing Men,” when they tangle with Abe Slaney, “the most dangerous crook in Chicago.”

  69 Watson seems to be emphasising this point to remind his readers of the somewhat similar incident in A Study in Scarlet, in which Jefferson Hope takes Lucy Ferrier’s wedding ring off of her finger after her death, then accidentally leaves it behind when murdering his old enemy.

  CHAPTER

  VI

  A DAWNING LIGHT70

  THE THREE DETECTIVES had many matters of detail into which to inquire; so I returned alone to our modest quarters at the village inn; but before doing so I took a stroll in the curious old-world garden which flanked the house. Rows of very ancient yew trees cut into strange designs girded it round. Inside was a beautiful stretch of lawn with an old sundial in the middle, the whole effect so soothing and restful that it was welcome to my somewhat jangled nerves. In that deeply peaceful atmosphere one could forget or remember only as some fantastic nightmare that darkened study with the sprawling, bloodstained figure on the floor. And yet, as I strolled round it and tried to steep my soul in its gentle balm, a strange incident occurred, which brought me back to the tragedy and left a sinister impression in my mind.

  I have said that a decoration of yew trees circled the garden. At the end which was farthest from the house they thickened into a continuous hedge. On the other side of this hedge, concealed from the eyes of anyone approaching from the direction of the house, there was a stone seat. As I approached the spot I was aware of voices, some remark in the deep tones of a man, answered by a little ripple of feminine laughter. An instant later I had come round the end of the hedge and my eyes lit upon Mrs. Douglas and the man Barker before they were aware of my presence. Her appearance gave me a shock. In the dining-room she had been demure and discreet. Now all pretense of grief had passed away from her. Her eyes shone with the joy of living, and her face still quivered with amusement at some remark of her companion. He sat forward, his hands clasped and his forearms on his knees, with an answering smile upon his bold, handsome face. In an instant—but it was just one instant too late—they resumed their solemn masks as my figure came into view. A hurried word or two passed between them, and then Barker rose and came towards me.

  “Excuse me, sir,” said he, “but am I addressing Dr. Watson?”

  I bowed with a coldness which showed, I dare say, very plainly the impression which had been produced upon my mind.

  “We thought that it was probably you, as your friendship with Mr. Sherlock Holmes is so well known. Would you mind coming over and speaking to Mrs. Douglas for one instant?”

  I followed him with a dour face. Very clearly I could see in my mind’s eye that shattered figure upon the floor. Here within a few hours of the tragedy were his wife and his nearest friend laughing together behind a bush in the garden which had been his. I greeted the lady with reserve. I had grieved with her grief in the dining-room. Now I met her appealing gaze with an unresponsive eye.

  “I fear that you think me callous and hard-hearted,” said she.

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  “It is no business of mine,” said I.

  “Perhaps some day you will do me justice. If you only realized—”

  “There is no need why Dr. Watson should realize,” said Barker, quickly. “A
s he has himself said, it is no possible business of his.”

  “Exactly,” said I, “and so I will beg leave to resume my walk.”

  “One moment, Dr. Watson,” cried the woman, in a pleading voice. “There is one question which you can answer with more authority than anyone else in the world, and it may make a very great difference to me. You know Mr. Holmes and his relations with the police better than anyone else can do. Supposing that a matter were brought confidentially to his knowledge, is it absolutely necessary that he should pass it on to the detectives?”

  “Yes, that’s it,” said Barker, eagerly. “Is he on his own or is he entirely in with them?”

  “I really don’t know that I should be justified in discussing such a point.”

  “I beg—I implore that you will, Dr. Watson! I assure you that you will be helping us—helping me greatly if you will guide us on that point.”

  There was such a ring of sincerity in the woman’s voice that for the instant I forgot all about her levity and was moved only to do her will.

  “Mr. Holmes is an independent investigator,” I said. “He is his own master, and would act as his own judgment directed. At the same time, he would naturally feel loyalty towards the officials who were working on the same case, and he would not conceal from them anything which would help them in bringing a criminal to justice. Beyond this I can say nothing, and I would refer you to Mr. Holmes himself if you wanted fuller information.”

  “Mr. Holmes is an independent investigator,’ I said. ‘He is his own master.’ ”

  Frank Wiles, Strand Magazine, 1914

  So saying I raised my hat and went upon my way, leaving them still seated behind that concealing hedge. I looked back as I rounded the far end of it, and saw that they were still talking very earnestly together, and, as they were gazing after me, it was clear that it was our interview that was the subject of their debate.