Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (894 page)

There were six of them, all evidently sailors. One I recognised as the man with the earrings whom I had already met upon the road that evening. They were all fine, weather-bronzed bewhiskered fellows. In the midst of them, leaning against the table, was the freckled man who had passed me on the moor. The great black cloak which poor Enoch had taken out with him was still hanging from his shoulders. He was of a very different type from the others — crafty, cruel, dangerous, with sly, thoughtful eyes which gloated over my uncle. They suddenly turned themselves upon me and I never knew how one’s skin can creep at a man’s glance before.

“Who are you?” he asked. “Speak out, or we’ll find a way to make you.”

“I am Mr. Stephen Maple’s nephew, come to visit him.”

“You are, are you? Well, I wish you joy of your uncle and of your visit too. Quick’s the word, lads, for we must be aboard before morning. What shall we do with the old ‘un? “

“Trice him up Yankee fashion and give him six dozen,” said one of the seamen.

“D’you hear, you cursed Cockney thief? We’ll beat the life out of you if you don’t give back what you’ve stolen. Where are they? I know you never parted with them.”

My uncle pursed up his lips and shook his head, with a face in which his fear and his obstinacy contended.

“Won’t tell, won’t you? We’ll see about that! Get him ready, Jim!”

One of the seamen seized my uncle, and pulled his coat and shirt over his shoulders. He sat lumped in his chair, his body all creased into white rolls which shivered with cold and with terror.

“Up with him to those hooks.”

There were rows of them along the walls where the smoked meat used to be hung. The seamen tied my uncle by the wrists to two of these. Then one of them undid his leather belt.

“The buckle end, Jim,” said the captain. “Give him the buckle.”

“You cowards,” I cried; “to beat an old man!”

“We’ll beat a young one next,” said he, with a malevolent glance at my corner. “Now, Jim, cut a wad out of him!”

“Give him one more chance!” cried one of the seamen.

“Aye, aye,” growled one or two others. “ Give the swab a chance! “

“If you turn soft, you may give them up for ever,” said the captain. “One thing or the other! You must lash it out of him; or you may give up what you took such pains to win and what would make you gentlemen for life — every man of you. There’s nothing else for it. Which shall it be?”

“Let him have it,” they cried, savagely.

“Then stand clear! “ The buckle of the man’s belt whined savagely as he whirled it over his shoulder.

But my uncle cried out before the blow fell. “I can’t stand it!” he cried. “Let me down! “

“Where are they, then?”

“I’ll show you if you’ll let me down.” They cast off the handkerchiefs and he pulled his coat over his fat, round shoulders. The seamen stood round him, the most intense curiosity and excitement upon their swarthy faces.

“No gammon!” cried the man with the freckles. “We’ll kill you joint by joint if you try to fool us. Now then! Where are they?”

“In my bedroom.”

“Where is that?”

“The room above.”

“Whereabouts?”

“In the corner of the oak ark by the bed.”

The seamen all rushed to the stair, but the captain called them back.

“We don’t leave this cunning old fox behind us. Ha, your face drops at that, does it? By the Lord, I believe you are trying to slip your anchor. Here, lads, make him fast and take him along!”

With a confused trampling of feet they rushed up the stairs, dragging my uncle in the midst of them. For an instant I was alone. My hands were tied but not my feet. If I could find my way across the moor I might rouse the police and intercept these rascals before they could reach the sea. For a moment I hesitated as to whether I should leave my uncle alone in such a plight. But I should be of more service to him — or, at the worst, to his property — if I went than if I stayed. I rushed to the hall door, and as I reached if. I heard a yell above my head, a shattering, splintering noise, and then amid a chorus of shouts a huge weight fell with a horrible thud at my very feet. Never while I live will that squelching thud pass out of my ears. And there, just in front of me, in the lane of light cast by the open door, lay my unhappy uncle, his bald head twisted on to one shoulder, like the wrung neck of a chicken. It needed but a glance to see that his spine was broken and that he was dead.

The gang of seamen had rushed downstairs so quickly that they were clustered at the door and crowding all round me almost as soon as I had realised what had occurred.

“It’s no doing of ours, mate,” said one of them to me. “He hove himself through the window, and that’s the truth. Don’t you put it down to us.”

“He thought he could get to windward of us if once he was out in the dark, you see,” said another. “ But he came head foremost and broke his bloomin’ neck.”

“And a blessed good job too!” cried the chief, with a savage oath. “ I’d have done it for him if he hadn’t took the lead. Don’t make any mistake, my lads, this is murder, and we’re all in it, together. There’s only one way out of it, and that is to hang together, unless, as the saying goes, you mean to hang apart. There’s only one witness—”

He looked at me with his malicious little eyes, and I saw that he had something that gleamed — either a knife or a revolver — in the breast of his pea-jacket. Two of the men slipped between us.

“Stow that, Captain Elias,” said one of them. “If this old man met his end it is through no fault of ours. The worst we ever meant him was to take some of the skin off his back. But as to this young fellow, we have no quarrel with him —— -”

“You fool, you may have no quarrel with him, but he has his quarrel with you. He’ll swear your life away if you don’t silence his tongue. It’s his life or ours, and don’t you make any mistake.”

“Aye, aye, the skipper has the longest head of any of us. Better do what he tells you,” cried another.

But my champion, who was the fellow with the earrings, covered me with his own broad chest and swore roundly that no one should lay a finger on me. The others were equally divided, and my fate might have been the cause of a quarrel between them, when suddenly the captain gave a cry of delight and amazement which was taken up by the whole gang. I followed their eyes and outstretched fingers, and this was what I saw.

My uncle was lying with his legs outstretched, and the club foot was that which was furthest from us. All round this foot a dozen brilliant objects were twinkling and flashing in the yellow light which streamed from the open door. The captain caught up the lantern and held it to the place. The huge sole of his boot had been shattered in the fall, and it was clear now that it had been a hollow box in which he stowed his valuables, for the path was all sprinkled with precious stones. Three which I saw were of an unusual size, and as many as forty, I should think, of fair value. The seamen had cast themselves down and were greedily gathering them up, when my friend with the earrings plucked me by the sleeve.

“Here’s your chance, mate,” he whispered. “Off you go before worse comes of it.”

It was a timely hint, and it did not take me long to act upon it. A few cautious steps and I had passed unobserved beyond the circle of light. Then I set off running, falling and rising and falling again, for no on a who has not tried it can tell how hard it is to run over uneven ground with hands which are fastened together. I ran and ran, until for want of breath I could no longer put one foot before the other. But I need not have hurried so, for when I had gone a long way I stopped at last to breathe, and, looking back, I could still see the gleam of the lantern far away, and the outline of the seamen who squatted round it. Then at last this single point of light went suddenly out, and the whole great moor was left in the thickest darkness.

So deftly was I tied, that it took me a long half-hour and a broken tooth before I got my hands free. My idea was to make my way across to the Purcells’ farm, but north was the same as south under that pitchy sky, and for hours I wandered among the rustling, scuttling sheep without any certainty as to where I was going. When at last there came a glimmer in the east, and the undulating fells, grey with the morning mist, rolled once more to the horizon, I recognised that I was close by Purcell’s farm, and there a little in front of me I was startled to see another man walking in the same direction. At first I approached him warily, but before I overtook him I knew by the bent back and tottering step that it was Enoch, the old servant, and right glad I was to see that he was living. He had been knocked down, beaten, and his cloak and hat taken away by these ruffians, and all night he had wandered in the darkness, like myself, in search of help. He burst into tears when I told him of his master’s death, and sat hiccoughing with the hard, dry sobs of an old man among the stones upon the moor.

“It’s the men of the Black Mogul,” he said. “Yes, yes, I knew that they would be the end of ‘im.”

“Who are they?” I asked.

“Well, well, you are one of ‘is own folk,” said he. “‘E ‘as passed away; yes, yes, it is all over and done. I can tell you about it, no man better, but mum’s the word with old Enoch unless master wants ‘im to speak. But his own nephew who came to ‘elp ‘im in the hour of need — yes, yes. Mister John, you ought to know.

“It was like this, sir. Your uncle ‘ad ‘is grocer’s business at Stepney, but ‘e ‘ad another business also. ‘E would buy as well as sell, and when ‘e bought ‘e never asked no questions where the stuff came from. Why should ‘e? It wasn’t no business of ‘is, was it? If folk brought him a stone or a silver plate, what was it to ‘im where they got it? That’s good sense, and it ought to be good law, as I ‘old. Any’ow, it was good enough for us at Stepney.

“Well, there was a steamer came from South Africa what foundered at sea. At least, they say so, and Lloyd’s paid the money. She ‘ad some very fine diamonds invoiced as being aboard of ‘er. Soon after there came the brig Black Mogul into the port o’ London, with ‘er papers all right as ‘avin’ cleared from Port Elizabeth with a cargo of ‘ides. The captain, which ‘is name was Elias, ‘e came to see the master, and what d’you think that ‘e ‘ad to sell? Why, sir, as I’m a livin’ sinner ‘e ‘ad a packet of diamonds for all the world just the same as what was lost out o’ that there African steamer. ‘Ow did ‘e get them? I don’t know. Master didn’t know. ‘E didn’t seek to know either. The captain ‘e was anxious for reasons of ‘is own to get them safe, so ‘e gave them to master, same as you might put a thing in a bank. But master ‘e’d ‘ad time to get fond of them, and ‘e wasn’t over satisfied as to where the Black Mogul ‘ad been tradin’, or where her captain ‘ad got the stones, so when ‘e come back for them the master ‘e said as ‘e thought they were best in ‘is own ‘ands. Mind I don’t ‘old with it myself, but that was what master said to Captain Elias in the little back parlour at Stepney. That was ‘ow ‘e got ‘is leg broke and three of his ribs.

“So the captain got jugged for that, and the master, when ‘e was able to get about, thought that ‘e would ‘ave peace for fifteen years, and ‘e came away from London because ‘e was afraid of the sailor men; but, at the end of five years, the captain was out and after ‘im, with as many of ‘is crew as ‘e could gather. Send for the perlice, you says! Well, there are two sides to that, and the master ‘e wasn’t much more fond of the perlice than Elias was. But they fair ‘emmed master in, as you ‘ave seen for yourself, and they bested ‘im at last, and the loneliness that ‘e thought would be ‘is safety ‘as proved ‘is ruin. Well, well, ‘e was ‘ard to many, but a good master to me, and it’s long before I come on such another.”

One word in conclusion. A strange cutter, which had been hanging about the coast, was seen to beat down the Irish Sea that morning, and it is conjectured that Elias and his men were on board of it. At any rule, nothing has been heard of them since. It was shown at the inquest that my uncle had lived in a sordid fashion for years, and he left little behind him. The mere knowledge that he possessed this treasure, which he carried about with him in so extraordinary a fashion, had appeared to be the joy of his life, and he had never, as far as we could learn, tried to realise any of his diamonds. So his disreputable name when living was not atoned for by any posthumous benevolence, and the family, equally scandalised by his life and by his death, have finally buried all memory of the club-footed grocer of Stepney.

THE SEALED ROOM

A SOLICITOR of an active habit and athletic tastes who is compelled by his hopes of business to remain within the four walls of his office from ten till five must take what exercise he can in the evenings. Hence it was that I was in the habit of indulging in very long nocturnal excursions, in which I sought the heights of Hampstead and Highgate in order to cleanse my system from the impure air of Abchurch Lane. It was in the course of one of these aimless rambles that I first met Felix Stanniford, and so led up to what has been the most extraordinary adventure of my lifetime.

One evening — it was in April or early May of the year 1894 — I made my way to the extreme northern fringe of London, and was walking down one of those fine avenues of high brick villas which the huge city is for ever pushing farther and farther out into the country. It was a fine, clear spring night, the moon was shining out of an unclouded sky, and I, having already left many miles behind me, was inclined to walk slowly and look about me. In this contemplative mood, my attention was arrested by one of the houses which I was passing.

It was a very large building, standing in its own grounds, a little back from the road. It was modern in appearance, and yet it was far less so than its neighbours, all of which were crudely and painfully new. Their symmetrical line was broken by the gap caused by the laurel-studded lawn, with the great, dark, gloomy house looming at the back of it. Evidently it had been the country retreat of some wealthy merchant, built perhaps when the nearest street was a mile off, and now gradually overtaken and surrounded by the red brick tentacles of the London octopus. The next stage, I reflected, would be its digestion and absorption, so that the cheap builder might rear a dozen eighty-pound-a-year villas upon the garden frontage. And then, as all this passed vaguely through my mind, an incident occurred which brought my thoughts into quite another channel.

A four-wheeled cab, that opprobrium of London, was coming jolting and creaking in one direction, while in the other there was a yellow glare from the lamp of a cyclist. They were the only moving objects in the whole long, moonlit road, and yet they crashed into each other with that malignant accuracy which brings two ocean liners together in the broad waste of the Atlantic. It was the cyclist’s fault. He tried to cross in front of the cab, miscalculated his distance, and was knocked sprawling by the horse’s shoulder. He rose, snarling; the cabman swore back at him, and then, realising that his number had not yet been taken, lashed his horse and lumbered off. The cyclist caught at the handles of his prostrate machine, and then suddenly sat down with a groan. “Oh, Lord!” he said.

I ran across the road to his side. “Any harm done?” I asked.

“It’s my ankle,” said he. “Only a twist, I think; but it’s pretty painful. Just give me your hand, will you?”

He lay in the yellow circle of the cycle lamp, and I noted as I helped him to his feet that he was a gentlemanly young fellow, with a slight dark moustache and large, brown eyes, sensitive and nervous in appearance, with indications of weak health upon his sunken cheeks. Work or worry had left its traces upon his thin, yellow face. He stood up when I pulled his hand, but he held one foot in the air, and he groaned as he moved it.

“I can’t put it to the ground,” said he.

“Where do you live?”

“Here!” he nodded his head towards the big, dark house in the garden. “ I was cutting across to the gate when that confounded cab ran into me. Could you help me so far?”

It was easily done. I put his cycle inside the gate, and then I supported him down the drive, and up the steps to the hall door. There was not a light anywhere, and the place was as black and silent as if no one had ever lived in it.

“That will do. Thank you very much,” said he, fumbling with his key in the lock.

“No, you must allow me to see you safe.”

He made some feeble, petulant protest, and then realised that he could really do nothing without me. The door had opened into a pitch-dark hall. He lurched forward, with my hand still on his arm. “This door to the right,” said he, feeling about in the darkness.

I opened the door, and at the same moment he managed to strike a light. There was a lamp upon the table, and we lit it between us. “ Now, I’m all right. You can leave me now! Good-bye!” said he, and with the words he sat down in the arm-chair and fainted dead away.

It was a queer position for me. The fellow looked so ghastly, that really I was not sure that he was not dead. Presently his lips quivered and his breast heaved, but his eyes were two white slits and his colour was horrible. The responsibility was more than I could stand. I pulled at the bell-rope, and heard the bell ringing furiously far away. But no one came in response. The bell tinkled away into silence, which no murmur or movement came to break. I waited, and rang again, with the same result. There must be some one about. This young gentleman could not live all alone in that huge house. His people ought to know of his condition. If they would not answer the bell, I must hunt them out myself. I seized the lamp and rushed from the room.

What I saw outside amazed me. The hall was empty. The stairs were bare, and yellow with dust. There were three doors opening into spacious rooms, and each was uncarpeted and undraped, save for the grey webs which drooped from the cornice, and rosettes of lichen which had formed upon the walls. My feet reverberated in those empty and silent chambers. Then I wandered on down the passage, with the idea that the kitchens, at least, might be tenanted. Some caretaker might lurk in some secluded room. No, they were all equally desolate. Despairing of finding any help, I ran down another corridor, and came on something which surprised me more than ever.

The passage ended in a large, brown door, and the door had a seal of red wax the size of a five-shilling piece over the keyhole. This seal gave me the impression of having been there for a long time, for it was dusty and discoloured. I was still staring at it, and wondering what that door might conceal, when I heard a voice calling behind me, and, running back, found my young man sitting up in his chair and very much astonished at finding himself in darkness.

“Why on earth did you take the lamp away?” he asked.

“I was looking for assistance.”

“You might look for some time,” said he. “I am alone in the house.”

“Awkward if you get an illness.”

“It was foolish of me to faint. I inherit a weak heart from my mother, and pain or emotion has that effect upon me. It will carry me off some day, as it did her. You’re not a doctor, are you? “

“No, a lawyer. Frank Alder is my name.”

“Mine is Felix Stanniford. Funny that I should meet a lawyer, for my friend, Mr. Perceval, was saying that I should need one soon.”

“Very happy, I am sure.”

“Well, that will depend upon him, you know. Did you say that you had run with that lamp all over the ground floor?”

“Yes.”

“All over it?” he asked, with emphasis, and he looked at me very hard.

“I think so. I kept on hoping that I should find someone.”

“Did you enter all the rooms?” he asked, with the same intent gaze.

“Well, all that I could enter.”

“Oh, then you did notice it!” said he, and he shrugged his shoulders with the air of a man who makes the best of a bad job.

“Notice what?”

“Why, the door with the seal on it.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Weren’t you curious to know what was in it?”

“Well, it did strike me as unusual.”

“Do you think you could go on living alone in this house, year after year, just longing all the time to know what is at the other side of that door, and yet not looking?”

“Do you mean to say,” I cried, “that you don’t know yourself?”

“No more than you do.”

“Then why don’t you look?”

“I mustn’t,” said he.

He spoke in a constrained way, and I saw that I had blundered on to some delicate ground. I don’t know that I am more inquisitive than my neighbours, but there certainly wag something in the situation which appealed very strongly to my curiosity. However, my last excuse for remaining in the house was gone now that my companion had recovered his senses. I rose to go.

“Are you in a hurry? “ he asked.

“No; I have nothing to do.”

“Well, I should be very glad if you would stay with me a little. The fact is that I live a very retired and secluded life here. I don’t suppose there is a man in London who leads such a life as I do. It is quite unusual for me to have any one to talk with.”

I looked round at the little room, scantily furnished, with a sofa-bed at one side. Then I thought of the great, bare house, and the sinister door with the discoloured red seal upon it. There was something queer and grotesque in the situation, which made me long to know a little more. Perhaps I should, if I waited. I told him that I should be very happy.

“You will find the spirits and a siphon upon the side table. You must forgive me if I cannot act as host, but I can’t get across the room. Those are cigars in the tray there. I’ll take one myself, I think. And you are a solicitor, Mr. Alder?”

“Yes.”

“And I am nothing. I am that most helpless of living creatures, the son of a millionaire. I was brought up with the expectation of great wealth; and here I am, a poor man, without any profession at all. And then, on the top of it all, I am left with this great mansion on my hands, which I cannot possibly keep up. Isn’t it an absurd situation? For me to use this as my dwelling is like a coster drawing his barrow with a thoroughbred. A donkey would be more useful to him, and a cottage to me.”

“But why not sell the house? “ I asked.

“I mustn’t.”

“Let it, then?”

“No, I mustn’t do that either.”

I looked puzzled, and my companion smiled.

“I’ll tell you how it is, if it won’t bore you.” said he.

“On the contrary, I should be exceedingly interested.”

“I think, after your kind attention to me, I cannot do less than relieve any curiosity that you may feel. You must know that my father was Stanislaus Stanniford, the banker.”

Stanniford, the banker! I remembered the name at once. His flight from the country some seven years before had been one of the scandals and sensations of the time.

“I see that you remember,” said my companion. “My poor father left the country to avoid numerous friends, whose savings he had invested in an unsuccessful speculation. He was a nervous, sensitive man, and the responsibility quite upset his reason. He had committed no legal offence. It was purely a matter of sentiment. He would not even face his own family, and he died among strangers without ever letting us know where he was.”

“He died!” said I.

“We could not prove his death, but we know that it must be so, because the speculations came right again, and so there was no reason why he should not look any man in the face. He would have returned if he were alive. But he must have died in the last two years.”

“Why in the last two years? “

“Because we heard from him two years ago.”

“Did he not tell you then where he was living? “

“The letter came from Paris, but no address was given. It was when my poor mother died. He wrote to me then, with some instructions and some advice, and I have never heard from him since.”

“Had you heard before? “

“Oh, yes, we had heard before, and that’s where our mystery of the sealed door, upon which you stumbled to-night, has its origin. Pass me that desk, if you please. Here I have my father’s letters, and you are the first man except Mr. Perceval who has seen them.”

“Who is Mr. Perceval, may I ask? “

“He was my father’s confidential clerk, and he has continued to be the friend and adviser of my mother and then of myself. I don’t know what we should have done without Perceval. He saw the letters, but no one else. This is the first one, which came on the very day when my father fled, seven years ago. Read it to yourself.”

This is the letter which I read: —

“MY EVER DEAREST WIFE, —

“Since Sir William told me how weak your heart is, and how harmful any shock might be, I have never talked about my business affairs to you. The time has come when at all risks I can no longer refrain from telling you that things have been going badly with me. This will cause me to leave you for a little time, but it is with the absolute assurance that we shall see each other very soon. On this you can thoroughly rely. Our parting is only for a very short time, my own darling, so don’t let it fret you, and above all don’t let it impair your health, for that is what I want above all things to avoid.