116 The story continued in the February 1915 issue of the Strand Magazine with the following summary:
PART I—
THE TRAGEDY OF BIRLSTONE
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.
Holmes, Dr. Watson, and the inspector proceed to the scene of the tragedy, where they are met by Mr. White Mason, the chief Sussex detective. 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. His wedding-ring had been removed and the ring above it replaced.
There is no clue to the murderer except a bloody footprint on the window-sill, and he had apparently made his escape by wading across the moat. Holmes is much struck by the fact that one of Douglas’s dumb-bells is missing.
Cecil Barker, Douglas’s most intimate friend, is considerably flustered while being cross-examined by the detectives, and confesses that Douglas had been jealous on account of his attentions to Mrs. Douglas. Holmes ascertains from Ames, the butler, that on the previous evening Barker was wearing a pair of bedroom slippers which were stained with blood, and on comparing them with the footprints on the window-sill finds that they correspond.
Holmes gives Watson his reasons for believing that Mrs. Douglas and Barker know all about the murder. He advises the other detectives to abandon the case and asks them to meet him that same evening when he promises they shall share everything he knows. Meanwhile the detectives send a note to Barker saying that they intend to drain the moat on the morrow.
On meeting in the evening they hide near the moat, from which they see Barker drag a large bundle. All thereupon rush into the house, and Holmes extracts from the bundle a pair of boots, a knife, and some clothing of American make—and the missing dumb-bell! Holmes’s deductions from this discovery cause much astonishment, which is increased when he recommends that Mr. Douglas be asked to tell his own story.
At Holmes’s words, a man seemed to emerge from the wall. It is Douglas himself, who explains that he has been cooped up since killing, in self-defence, a man who had tried to murder him two days previously. The fact that this man—whom he had known in America, and who had been searching for him for years—was similar in build to himself gave him an idea. He would let it be thought that he (Douglas) had been killed and that the murderer had escaped. The dead man was dressed in Douglas’s clothes, and the fact that each bore a similar brand on his arm made the deception easier. Barker then did his best to help his friend by providing misleading clues, with what result we know.
During his enforced hiding Douglas had written an account of the events leading up to the tragedy. This he hands to Dr. Watson, saying, ‘There’s the story of the Valley of Fear!’
PART II—THE SCOWRERS
The scene now changes to America some twenty years earlier. In a West-bound train from Chicago John McMurdo, a member of the Ancient Order of Freemen, meets Brother Scanlan, a fellow-member of the Order. McMurdo—who, it appears, is fleeing from justice—tells Scanlan he is bound for Vermissa where he intends to put up at a boarding-house kept by Jacob Shafter.
The summary characterises the train on which McMurdo rides at the beginning of Chapter I as “West-bound.” This would be so if the train originated in Philadelphia, not Chicago (which is far to the west of the “Gilmerton” mountains). The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad is the likely line, according to the Conways.
No other summaries appeared in the remaining issues of the Strand Magazine in which the tale appeared.
117 The accents displayed by old Shafter are unplaceable. Germans pronounce “w” as “v” but the remaining substitutions and mannerisms in Shafter’s speech bear no resemblance to either German or Swedish.
118 “Acushla” is an Irish term of endearment (usually rendered “darling”) that literally means “my pulse” or “my vein” or “pulse (or vein) of my heart.”
119 Molly Maguire expert H. T. Crown identifies Ted Baldwin as Tom Hurley, referring to him (in a personal communication to this editor) as “the chief assassin of the Mollies.” Cleveland Moffett’s article on the Molly Maguires in McClure’s described how Hurley targeted a bartender named Gomer James in a vengeance killing. Hurley ordered a beer, Moffett wrote, and “James served him promptly, whereupon Hurley threw down a nickel, and lifting the glass in his left hand, pretended to drain it. But he held a pistol, ready cocked, in the right-hand pocket of his sack coat, and while the glass was at his lips, he pulled the trigger. Then, quite unconcerned, he finished his beer, and affected to join in a search for the murderer. At the time he himself was not suspected, there being no evidence of his guilt, except an unobserved hole in his coat.”
120 The English term “rates” is used in the Strand Magazine and English book texts.
121 As Walter Klinefelter notes, in Origins of Sherlock Holmes, this description of McGinty is similar to that of Jack Kehoe given by Allan Pinkerton in The Molly Maguires and the Detectives. In particular, Pinkerton notes Kehoe’s “plentiful” hair and “dark full whiskers and mustache” and remarks on Kehoe’s “cunning” look.
122 To pass counterfeit money.
123 To inform against one’s companions.
124 McMurdo has stated that he was minting gold dollars. These would have been either of the Liberty or Indian head type, both of which were in circulation in 1875. Silver dollars were not then being minted, as Congress had eliminated coinage of the silver dollar in an act commonly referred to as the Crime of 1873. “There have been a great many battles fought against gold,” Senator John Sherman told the Ohio Republican Convention in 1895, defending his support of the bill, “but gold has won every time. Gold never has compromised. Gold has made the world respect it all the time. The English people once thought they could get along without gold for a while, but they had to come back to it.” The Resumption Act of 1875 (passed in January of that year and backed by President Rutherford Hayes) called for the U.S. treasury to redeem all existing greenback paper money with “hard money” starting in 1879, as well as to reduce the paper money then in circulation. Gold dollars may have seemed like particularly valuable currency when McMurdo was minting them. But the public had faith in the value of greenbacks, and the treasurer accumulated sufficient gold to back them; therefore, when 1879 rolled around, there was no great rush to trade paper money for gold, and greenbacks continued their rise as the popular currency of choice.
Note that McMurdo is speaking figuratively of the “Washington mint.” Although the U.S. Mint moved its headquarters to Washington, D.C., in 1873, no coins have ever been produced there.
CHAPTER
III
LODGE 341, VERMISSA
ON THE DAY following the evening which had contained so many exciting events, McMurdo moved his lodgings from old Jacob Shafter’s and took up his quarters at the Widow MacNamara’s on the extreme outskirts of the town. Scanlan, his original acquaintance aboard the train, had occasion shortly afterwards to move into Vermissa, and the two lodged together. There was no other boarder, and the hostess was an easy-going old Irishwoman who left them to themselves; so that they had a freedom for speech and action welcome to men who had secrets in common.
Shafter had relented to the extent of letting McMurdo come to his meals there when he liked; so that his intercourse with Ettie was by no means broken. On the contrary, it drew closer and more intimate as the weeks went by.
/> In his bedroom at his new abode McMurdo felt it to be safe to take out the coining moulds, and under many a pledge of secrecy a number of brothers from the Lodge were allowed to come in and see them, each carrying away in his pocket some examples of the false money, so cunningly struck that there was never the slightest difficulty or danger in passing it. Why, with such a wonderful art at his command, McMurdo should condescend to work at all was a perpetual mystery to his companions, though he made it clear to anyone who asked him that if he lived without any visible means it would very quickly bring the police upon his track.
One policeman was indeed after him already; but the incident, as luck would have it, did the adventurer a great deal more good than harm. After the first introduction there were few evenings when he did not find his way to McGinty’s saloon, there to make closer acquaintance with “the boys,” which was the jovial title by which the dangerous gang who infested the place were known to each other. His dashing manner and fearlessness of speech made him a favourite with them all; while the rapid and scientific way in which he polished off his antagonist in an “all in” bar-room scrap earned the respect of that rough community. Another incident, however, raised him even higher in their estimation.
Just at the crowded hour one night, the door opened and a man entered with the quiet blue uniform and peaked cap of the Coal and Iron Police. This was a special body raised by the railways and colliery owners to supplement the efforts of the ordinary civil police, who were perfectly helpless in the face of the organized ruffianism which terrorized the district.125 There was a hush as he entered, and many a curious glance was cast at him; but the relations between policemen and criminal are peculiar in the States, and McGinty himself, standing behind his counter, showed no surprise when the inspector enrolled himself among his customers.
“A straight whisky, for the night is bitter,” said the police-officer. “I don’t think we have met before, Councillor?”
“You’ll be the new captain?” said McGinty.
“That’s so. We’re looking to you, Councillor, and to the other leading citizens, to help us in upholding law and order in this township. Captain Marvin is my name—of the Coal and Iron.”
“We’d do better without you, Captain Marvin,” said McGinty coldly; “for we have our own police of the township, and no need for any imported goods. What are you but the paid tool of the capitalists, hired by them to club or shoot your poorer fellow-citizen?”
“Well, well, we won’t argue about that,” said the police officer good-humouredly. “I expect we all do our duty same as we see it; but we can’t all see it the same.” He had drunk off his glass and had turned to go, when his eyes fell upon the face of Jack McMurdo, who was scowling at his elbow. “Hullo! Hullo!” he cried, looking him up and down. “Here’s an old acquaintance!”
McMurdo shrank away from him. “I was never a friend to you nor any other cursed copper in my life,” said he.
“An acquaintance isn’t always a friend,” said the police-captain, grinning. “You’re Jack McMurdo of Chicago, right enough, and don’t you deny it!”
McMurdo shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not denying it,” said he. “D’ye think I’m ashamed of my own name?”
“You’ve got good cause to be, anyhow.”
“What the devil d’you mean by that?” he roared with his fists clenched.
“No, no, Jack, bluster won’t do with me. I was an officer in Chicago before ever I came to this darned coal-bunker, and I know a Chicago crook when I see one.”
McMurdo’s face fell. “Don’t tell me that you’re Marvin of the Chicago Central!” he cried.126
“Just the same old Teddy Marvin, at your service. We haven’t forgotten the shooting of Jonas Pinto up there.”
“I never shot him.”
“Did you not? That’s good impartial evidence, ain’t it? Well, his death came in uncommon handy for you, or they would have had you for shoving the queer. Well, we can let that be bygones; for, between you and me—and perhaps I’m going further than my duty in saying it—they could get no clear case against you, and Chicago’s open to you to-morrow.
“I’m very well where I am.”
“Well, I’ve given you the office,127 and you’re a sulky dog not to thank me for it.”
“Well, I suppose you mean well, and I do thank you,” said McMurdo in no very gracious manner.
“It’s mum with me so long as I see you living on the straight,” said the captain. “But, by the Lord! if you get on the cross after this, it’s another story! So good-night to you—and good-night, Councillor.”
He left the bar-room, but not before he had created a local hero. McMurdo’s deeds in far Chicago had been whispered before. He had put off all questions with a smile, as one who did not wish to have greatness thrust upon him. But now the thing was officially confirmed. The bar loafers crowded round him and shook him heartily by the hand. He was free of the community from that time on. He could drink hard and show little trace of it; but that evening, had his mate Scanlan not been at hand to lead him home, the feted hero would surely have spent his night under the bar.
“ ‘I was an officer in Chicago before ever I came to this darned coalbunker, and I know a Chicago crook when I see one.’ ”
Frank Wiles, Strand Magazine, 1915
On a Saturday night McMurdo was introduced to the Lodge. He had thought to pass in without ceremony as being an initiate of Chicago; but there were particular rites in Vermissa of which they were proud, and these had to be undergone by every postulant.128 The assembly met in a large room reserved for such purposes at the Union House. Some sixty members assembled at Vermissa; but that by no means represented the full strength of the organization, for there were several other lodges in the valley, and others across the mountains on each side, who exchanged members when any serious business was afoot, so that a crime might be done by men who were strangers to the locality. Altogether there were not less than five hundred scattered over the coal district.
In the bare assembly room the men were gathered round a long table. At the side was a second one laden with bottles and glasses, on which some members of the company were already turning their eyes. McGinty sat at the head with a flat black velvet cap upon his shock of tangled black hair, and a coloured purple stole round his neck, so that he seemed to be a priest presiding over some diabolical ritual. To right and left of him were the higher Lodge officials, the cruel, handsome face of Ted Baldwin among them. Each of these wore some scarf or medallion as emblem of his office.
They were, for the most part, men of mature age; but the rest of the company consisted of young fellows from eighteen to twenty-five, the ready and capable agents who carried out the commands of their seniors. Among the older men were many whose features showed the tigerish, lawless souls within; but looking at the rank and file it was difficult to believe that these eager and open-faced young fellows were in very truth a dangerous gang of murderers, whose minds had suffered such complete moral perversion that they took a horrible pride in their proficiency at the business, and looked with deepest respect at the man who had the reputation for making what they called “a clean job.”
To their contorted natures it had become a spirited and chivalrous thing to volunteer for service against some man who had never injured them, and whom in many cases, they had never seen in their lives. The crime committed, they quarrelled as to who had actually struck the fatal blow, and amused each other and the company by describing the cries and contortions of the murdered man.
At first they had shown some secrecy in their arrangements; but at the time which this narrative describes their proceedings were extraordinarily open, for the repeated failures of the law had proved to them that, on the one hand, no one would dare to witness against them, and, on the other, they had an unlimited number of stanch witnesses upon whom they could call, and a well-filled treasure chest from which they could draw the funds to engage the best legal talent in the State. In ten long years of outra
ge there had been no single conviction, and the only danger that ever threatened the Scowrers lay in the victim himself—who, however outnumbered and taken by surprise, might and occasionally did leave his mark upon his assailants.
McMurdo had been warned that some ordeal lay before him; but no one would tell him in what it consisted. He was led now into an outer room by two solemn brothers. Through the plank partition he could hear the murmur of many voices from the assembly within. Once or twice he caught the sound of his own name, and he knew that they were discussing his candidature. Then there entered an inner guard with a green and gold sash across his chest.
“The Bodymaster orders that he shall he trussed, blinded, and entered,” said he.
The three of them then removed his coat, turned up the sleeve of his right arm, and finally passed a rope round above the elbows and made it fast. They next placed a thick black cap right over his head and the upper part of his face, so that he could see nothing. He was then led into the assembly hall.
It was pitch dark and very oppressive under his hood. He heard the rustle and murmur of the people round him, and then the voice of McGinty sounded, dull and distant through the covering of his ears.
“Each Mollie devoutly made the sign of the cross as Monaghan and McKenna entered.” [McParlan’s (McKenna’s) initiation to the Ancient Order of Hibernians.]
The Molly Maguires and the Detectives, by Allan Pinkerton (1877)
“John McMurdo,” said the voice, “are you already a member of the Ancient Order of Freemen?”
He bowed in assent.
The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes Page 89