June 9, 2025 • 42 mins
Dive into the riveting world of the legendary detective, Sherlock Holmes, in this second compilation of short stories penned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Explore 12 enthralling adventures, serialized in The Strand from December 1892 to December 1893, each masterfully illustrated by Sidney Paget. Join Holmes and his faithful companion, Dr. Watson, as they unravel the mysteries that baffle Londons finest. - Summary by David Clarke
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Adventure seven in the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
Adventure seven The Crooked Man. One summer night, a few
months after my marriage, I was seated by my own hearth,
smoking a last pipe and nodding over a novel. For
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my day's work had been an exhausting one. My wife
had already gone upstairs, and the sound of the locking
of the hall door some time before told me that
the servants had also retired. I had risen from my
seat and was knocking out the ashes of my pipe
when I suddenly heard the clang of the bell. I
looked at the clock. It was a quarter to twelve.
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This could not be a visitor at so late an hour,
A patient, evidently, and possibly an all night. Sitting with
a wry face, I went out into the hall and
opened the door. To my astonishment, it was Sherlock Holmes
who stood upon my step. Ah Watson said he, I
hope that I might not be too late to catch you,
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My dear fellow, pray come in. You look surprised, and
no wonder relieve too. I fancy hum you still smoke
the Arcadia mixture of your bachelor days. Then there's no
mistaking that fluffy ash upon your coat. It's easy to
tell that you've been accustomed to wear a uniform, Watson,
You'll never pass as a pure bred civilian as long
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as you keep that habit of carrying your handkerchief in
your sleeve. Could you put me up to night with pleasure?
You told me that you had bachelor quarters for one,
and I see that you have no gentleman visitor at present.
Your hat stand proclaims as much. I shall be delighted
if you will stay. Thank you. I'll fill the vacant peg. Then,
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sorry to see that you've had the British workman in
the house. He's a token of evil. Not the drains,
I hope, No the gas ah. He has left two
nail marks from his boot upon your lunnoleum, just where
the light strikes it. No, thank you. I had some
supper at Waterloo, but i'll smoke a pipe with you
with pleasure. I handed him my pouch, and he seated
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himself opposite to me and smoked for some time in silence.
I was well aware that nothing but business of importance
would have brought him to me at such an hour,
so I waited patiently until he should come round to it.
I see that you are professionally rather busy just now,
said he, glancing very keenly across at me. Yes, I've
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had a busy day, I answered. It may seem very
foolish in your eyes. I added, but really I don't
know how you deduced it. Holmes chuckled to himself. I
have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson,
said he. When your round is a short one, you walk,
and when it is a long one, you use a hansom.
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As I perceive that your boots, although used, are by
no means dirty, I cannot doubt that you are at
present busy enough to justify the handsome excellent I cried elementary,
said he. It is one of those instances where the
reasoner can produce an effect which seems remarkable to his neighbor,
because the latter has missed the one little point which
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is the basis of the deduction. The same may be, said,
my dear fellow, for the effect of some of these
little sketches of yours, which is entirely meretricious, depending as
it does upon your retaining in your own hands some
factors in the problem which are never imparted to the reader.
Now at present, I am in the position of these
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same readers, For I hold in this hand several threads
of one of the strangest cases which ever perplexed a
man's brain. And yet I lack the one or two
which are needful to complete my theory. But I'll have them, Watson,
I'll have them. His eyes kindled in a slight flush,
sprang into his thin cheeks for an instant. Only when
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I glanced again, his face had resumed that red Indian
composure which had made so many regard him as a
machine rather than a man. The problem presents features of interest,
said he. I may even say exceptional features of interest.
I have already looked into the matter and have come,
as I think, within sight of my solution. If you
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could accompany me in the last step, you might be
of considerable service to me. I should be delighted. Could
you go as far as Aldershot tomorrow. I've no doubt
Jackson would take my practice very good. I want to
start by the eleven ten from Waterloo. That would give
me time. Then, if you are not too sleepy. I
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will give you a sketch of what has happened and
of what remains to be done. I was sleepy before
you came. I am quite wakeful now. I will compress
the story as far as may be done without omitting
anything vital to the case. It is conceivable that you
may even have read some account of the matter. It
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is the supposed murder of Colonel Barclay of the Royal
Munsters at Aldershot, which I am investigating. I've heard nothing
of it. It has not excited much attention yet, except locally.
The facts are only two days old. Briefly they are these.
The Royal Monsters is, as you know, one of the
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most famous Irish regiments in the British Army. It did
wonders both in the Crimea and the mutiny, and that
since that time distinguished itself upon every possible occasion. It
was commanded up to Monday night by James Barclay, a
gallant veteran who started as a full private, was raised
to commission rank for his bravery at the time of
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the mutiny, and so lived to command the regiment in
which he had once carried a musket. Colonel Berkeley had
married at the time when he was a sergeant, and
his wife, whose maiden name was Miss Nancy Devoy, was
the daughter of a former color sergeant in the same corps.
There was, therefore, as can be imagined, some little social
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friction when the young couple, or they were still young,
found themselves in their new surroundings. They appear, however, to
have quickly adapted themselves, and missus Berkley, as always I understand,
been as popular with the ladies of the regiment as
her husband was with his brother officers. I may add
that she was a woman of great beauty, and as
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even now, when she has been married for upwards of
thirty years, she is still of a striking and queenly appearance.
Colonel Barklay's family life appears to have been a uniformly
happy one. Major Murphy, to whom I owe most of
my facts, assures me that he has never heard of
any misunderstanding between the pair. On the whole, he thinks
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that Berkeley's devotion to his wife was greater than his
wife's to Barkley. He was acutely uneasy if he were
absent from her for a day. She, on the other hand,
though devoted and faithful, was less obtrusively affectionate. But they
were regarded in the regiment as the very model of
a middle aged couple. There was absolutely nothing in their
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mutual relations to prepare people for the tragedy which was
to follow. Colonel Barclay himself seems to have had some
singular traits in his character. He was a dashing, jovial
old soldier in his usual mood, but there were occasions
on which he seemed to show himself capable of considerable
violence and vindictiveness. This side of his nature, however, appears
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never to have been turned towards his wife. Another fact
which had struck Major Murphy and three out of five
of the other officers with whom I conversed was the
singular sort of depression which came upon him at times.
As the Major expressed it, the smile had often been
struck from his mouth, as if by some invisible hand,
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when he has been joining the gaieties and chaff of
the mess table for days on end, when the mood
was on him, he has been sunk in the deepest gloom.
This and a certain tinge of superstition were the only
unusual traits in his character, which his brother officers had observed.
The latter peculiarity took the form of a dislike to
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being left alone, especially after dark. This puerile feature in
a nature which was conspicuously manly, had often given rise
to comment and conjecture. The first Battalion of the Royal Munsters,
which is the old one hundred seventeenth, has been stationed
at Aldershot for some years. The married officers live out
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of barracks, and the Colonel has during all this time
occupied a villa called Lachen, about half a mile from
the north camp. The house stands in its own grounds,
but the west side of it is not more than
thirty yards from the high road. The coachman and two
maids formed the staff of servants. These, with their master
and mistress, were the sole occupants of Lachene, for the
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Berkeleys had no children, nor was it usual for them
to have resident visitors. Now for the events at Lachene
between nine and ten on the evening of last Monday,
Missus Berkley was, it appears, a member of the Roman
Catholic Church, and had interested herself very much in the
establishment of the Guild of Saint George, which was formed
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in connection with the Watt Street Chapel for the purpose
of supplying the poor with cast off clothing. A meeting
of the guild had been held that evening at eight,
and Missus Berkeley had hurried over her dinner in order
to be present at it. When leaving the house, she
was heard by the coachman to make some commonplace remark
to her husband and to assure him that she would
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be back before very long. She then called for missus Morrison,
a young lady who lives in the next villa, and
the two when off together to their meeting. It lasted
forty minutes, and at a quarter past nine, Missus Berkeley
returned home, having left miss Morrison at her door as
she passed. There's a room which is used as a
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morning room at Lachine. This faces the road and opens
by a large glass folding door onto the lawn. The
lawn is thirty yards across and is only divided from
the highway by a low wall with an iron rail
above it. It was into this room that Missus Berkley
went upon her return. The blinds were not down, for
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the room was seldom used in the evening, but Missus
Barkley herself lit the lamp, and then rang the bell,
asking Jane Stewart, the housemaid, to bring her a cup
of tea, which was quite contrary to her usual habits.
The colonel had been sitting in the dining room, but
hearing that his wife had returned, he joined her in
the morning room. The coachman saw him cross the hall
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and enter it. He was never seen again alive. The tea,
which had been ordered, was brought up at the end
of ten minutes, but the maid, as she approached the door,
was surprised to hear the voices of her master and
mistress in furious altercation. She knocked without receiving any answer,
and even turned the handle, but only to find that
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the door was locked upon the inside. Naturally enough, she
ran down to tell the cook, and the two women
with the coachman came up into the hall and listened
to the dispute, which was still raging. They all agreed
that only two voices were to be heard, those of
Berkeley and of his wife. Berkeley's remarks were subdued and abrupt,
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so that none of them were audible to the listeners.
The ladies, on the other hand, were most bitter, and
when she raised her voice could be plainly heard. You coward,
she repeated, over and over again, What can be done,
What can be done? Now give me back my LuFe.
I will never so much as breathe the same air
with you again, You cowered, you coward. Those were scraps
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of her conversation, ending in a sudden, dreadful cry in
the man's voice, with a crash and a piercing scream
from the woman. Convinced that some tragedy had occurred, the
coachman rushed to the door and strove to force it,
while scream after scream issued from within. He was unable, however,
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to make his way in, and the maids were too
distracted with fear to be of any assistance to him.
A sudden thought struck him, however, and he ran through
the hall door and round to the lawn, upon which
the long French windows open. One side of the window
was open, which I understand was quite usual in the
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summer time, and he passed without difficulty into the room.
His mistress had ceased to scream and was stretched insensible
upon a couch, while with his feet tilted over the
side of an armchair, and his head. Upon the ground
near the corner of the fender was lying the unfortunate
soldier stone dead in a pool of his own blood. Naturally,
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the coachman's first thought, on finding that he could do
nothing for his master, was to open the door. But
here an unexpected and singular difficulty presented itself. The key
was not in the inner side of the door, nor
could he find it anywhere in the room. He went
out again, therefore through the window, and having obtained the
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help of a policeman and of a medical man, he
returned the lady, against whom naturally the strongest suspicion rested,
was removed to her room, still in a state of insensibility.
The colonel's body was then placed upon the sofa, and
a careful examination made of the scene of the tragedy.
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The injury from which the unfortunate veteran was suffering was
found to be a jagged cut some two inches long
at the back part of his head, which had evidently
been caused by a violent blow from a blunt weapon.
Nor was it difficult to guess what that weapon may
have been. Upon the floor, close to the body was
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lying a singular club of hard carved wood with a
bone handle. The colonel possessed a varied collection of weapons
brought from the different countries in which he had fought,
and it is conjectured by the police that his club
was among his trophies. The servants deny having seen it before,
but among the numerous curiosities in the house, it is
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possible that it may have been overlooked. Nothing else of
importance was discovered in the room by the police, save
the inexplicable fact that neither upon Missus Barclay's person, nor
upon that of the victim, nor in any part of
the room, was the missing key to be found. The
door had eventually to be opened by a locksmith from Aldershot.
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That was the state of things, Watson, when upon the
Tuesday morning, I, at the request of Major Murphy, went
down to Aldershot to supplement the efforts of the police.
I think that you will acknowledge that the problem was
already one of interest, but my observations soon made me
realize that it was, in truth much more extraordinary than
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would at first sight appear. Before examining the room, I
cross questioned the servants, but only succeeded in eliciting the
facts which I have already stated. One other detail of
interest was remembered by Jane Stewart, the housemaid. You will
remember that, on hearing the sound of the quarrel, she
descended and returned with the other servants. On that first occasion,
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when she was alone, she says that the voices of
her master and mistress were sunk so low that she
could hear hardly anything, and judged by their tones rather
than their words, that they had fallen out on my
pressing her. However, she remembered that she heard the word
David uttered twice by the lady. The point is of
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the utmost importance as guiding us towards the reason of
the sudden quarrel. The colonel's name, you remember, was James.
There was one thing in the case which had made
the deepest impression both upon the servants and the police.
This was the contortion of the colonel's face. It had set,
according to their account, into the most dreadful expression of
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fear and horror which a human countenance is capable of assuming.
More than one person fainted at the mere sight of him.
So terrible was the effect. It was quite certain that
he had foreseen his fate, and that it had caused
him the utmost horror. This, of course, fitted in well
enough with the police theory if the colonel could have
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seen his wife making a murderous attack upon him, Nor
was the fact of the wound being on the back
of his head a fatal objection to this, as he
might have turned to avoid the blow. No information could
be got from the lady herself, who was temporarily insane
from an acute attack of brain fever. From the police,
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I learned that Miss Morrison, who you remember, went out
that evening with missus Barclay, denied having any knowledge of
what it was which had caused the ill humor in
which her companion had returned. Having gathered these facts, Watson
I smoked several pipes over them, trying to separate those
which were crucial from others which were merely incidental. There
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could be no question that the most distinctive and suggestive
point in the case was the singular disappearance of the
door key. A most careful search had failed to discover
it in the room. Therefore it must have been taken
from it. But neither the colonel nor the colonel's wife
could have taken it. That was perfectly clear. Therefore, a
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third person must have entered the room, and that third
person could only have come in through the window. It
seemed to me that a careful examination of the room
and the lawn might possibly reveal some traces of this
mysterious individual. You know my methods, Watson. There was not
one of them which I did not apply to the inquiry,
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and it ended by my discovering traces, but very different
ones from those which I had expected. There had been
a man in the room, and he had crossed the
lawn coming from the road. I was able to obtain
five very clear impressions of his footmarks, one in the
roadway itself at the point where he had climbed the
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low wall, two on the lawn, and two very faint
ones upon the stained boards near the window where he
had entered. He had apparently rushed across the lawn, for
his toe marks were much deeper than his heels. But
it was not the man who surprised me. It was
his companion. His companion Holmes pulled a large sheet of
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tissue paper out of his pocket and carefully unfolded it
upon his knee. What do you make of that? He asked?
The paper was covered with the tracings of the footmarks
of some small animal. It had five well marked footpads,
an indication of long nails, and the whole print might
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be nearly as large as a dessert spoon. It's a dog,
said I. Did you ever hear of a dog running
up a curtain? I found distinct traces that this creature
had done so. A monkey? Then, but it is not
the print of a monkey. What can it be, then,
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neither dog, nor cat, nor monkey, nor any creature that
we are familiar with. I have tried to reconstruct it
from the measurements. Here are four prints where the beast
has been standing motionless. You see that it is no
less than fifteen inches from four foot to hind. Add
to that the length of neck and head, and you
get a creature not much less than two feet long,
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probably more if there's any tail. But now observe this
other measurement. The animal has been moving, and we have
the length of its stride. In each case it is
only about three inches. You have an indication, you see
of a long body with very short legs attached to it.
It has not been considerate enough to leave any of
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its hair behind it. But its general shape must be
what I have indicated, and it can run up a curtain,
and it is carnivorous. How do you deduce that because
it ran up the curtain a canary's cage was hanging
in the window, and its aim seems to have been
to get at the bird? Then what was the beast? Ah?
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If I could give it a name, it might go
a long way towards solving the case. On the whole,
it was probably some creature of the weasel and stoat tribe.
And yet it is larger than any of these that
I have seen. But what had it to do with
a crime? That also is still obscure. But we have
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learned a good deal, you perceive. We know that a
man stood in the road looking at the quarrel between
the barclays, the blinds were up and the room lighted.
We know also that he ran across the lawn, entered
the room accompanied by a strange animal, and that he
either struck the colonel, or, as is equally possible, that
the colonel fell down from sheer fright at the sight
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of him and cut his head on the corner of
the fender. Finally, we have the curious fact that the
intruder carried away the key with him when he left.
Your discoveries seemed to have left the business more obscure
than it was before, said I. Quite so. They undoubtedly
showed that the affair was much deeper than was at
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first conjectured. I thought the matter over, and I came
to the conclusion that I must approach the case from
another aspect. But really, Watson, I'm keeping you up, and
I might just as well tell you all this on
our way to Aldershot tomorrow. Thank you, you've gone rather
too far to stop. It is quite certain that when
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missus Barclay left the house at half past seven, she
was on good terms with her husband. She was never,
as I think I've said, ostentatiously affectionate, but she was
heard by the coachman chatting with the colonel in a
friendly fashion. Now it was equally certain that immediately on
her return she had gone to the room in which
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she was least likely to see, her husband, had flown
to tea as an agitated woman will, and finally, on
his coming in to her, had broken into violent recriminations. Therefore,
something had occurred between seven thirty and nine o'clock which
had completely altered her feelings towards him. But miss Morrison
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had been with her during the whole of that hour
and a half. It was absolutely certain. Therefore, in spite
of her denial, that she must know something of the matter.
My first conjecture was that possibly there had been some
passages between this young lady and the old soldier, which
the former had now confessed to the wife. That would
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account for the angry return, and also for the girl's
denial that anything had occurred. Nor would it be entirely
incompatible with most of the words overheard. But there was
the reference to David, and there was the known affection
of the colonel for his wife to weigh against it,
to say nothing of the tragic intrusion of this other man,
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which might of course be entirely disconnected with what had
gone before. It was not easy to pick one's steps,
but on the whole I was inclined to dismiss the
idea that there had been anything between the colonel and
miss Morrison. Ever, convinced that the young lady held a
clue as to what it was which had turned Missus
Barclay to hatred of her husband, I took the obvious course, therefore,
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of calling upon Miss m of explaining to her that
I was perfectly certain that she held the facts in
her possession, and of assuring her that her friend, missus Barclay,
might find herself in the dock upon a capital charge
unless the matter were cleared up. Miss Morrison is a
little ethereal slip of a girl with timid eyes and
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blonde hair. But I found her by no means wanting
in shrewdness and common sense. She sat thinking for some
time after I had spoken, and then turning to me
with a brisk air of resolution, she broke into a
remarkable statement, which I'll condense for your benefit. I promise
my friend that I would say nothing of the matter.
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And a promise is a promise, said she. But if
I can really help her when so serious a charge
which is laid against her, and when her own mouth,
poor darling, is closed by illness, then I think I
am absolved from my promise. I will tell you exactly
what happened. Upon Monday evening, we were returning from the
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Watt Street Mission about a quarter to nine o'clock. On
our way, we had to pass through Hudson Street, which
is a very quiet thoroughfare. There is only one lamp
in it, upon the left hand side, and as we
approached this lamp, I saw a man coming towards us
with his back very bent and something like a box
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slung over one of his shoulders. He appeared to be deformed,
for he carried his head low and walked with his
knees bent. We were passing him when he raised his
face to look at us in the circle of light
thrown by the lamp, and as he did so, he
stopped and screamed out in a dreadful voice, My god,
it's Nancy. Missus Barkley turned as white as death and
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would have fall and down had the dreadful looking creature
not caught hold of her. I was going to call
for the police, but she, to my surprise, spoke quite
civilly to the fellow. I thought you'd been dead this
thirty years, Henry, said she in a shaking voice. So
I have said he and it was awful to hear
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the tones that he said it in. He had a
very dark, fearsome face and a gleam in his eyes
that comes back to me in my dreams. His hair
and whiskers were shot with gray and his face was
all crinkled and puckered like a withered apple. Just walk
on a little way, dear, said missus Barclay. I won't
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have a word with this man. There's nothing to be
afraid of. She tried to speak boldly, but she was
still deadly pale, and could hardly get her words out
for the trembling of her lips. I did as she
asked me, and they talked together for a few minutes.
Then she came down the street with her eyes blazing,
and I saw the crippled wretch standing by the lamp
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post and shaking his clenched fists in the air, as
if you were mad with rage. She never said a
word until we were at the door again, when she
took me by the hand and begged me to tell
no one what had happened. It's an old acquaintance of
mine who's come down in the world, said she. When
I promised her I would say nothing, she kissed me,
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and I have never seen her since. I've told you
now the whole truth, and if I withheld it from
the police, it is because I did not realize then
the danger in which my dear friend stood. I know
that it can only be to her advantage that everything
should be known. There was her statement, Watson, and to me,
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as you can imagine, it was like a light on
a dark night. Everything which had been disconnected before began
at once to assume its true place, and I had
a shadowy presentiment of the whole sequence of events. My
next step, obviously, was to find the man who had
produced such a remarkable impression upon missus Barclay. If he
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were still in Aldershot, it should not be a very
difficult matter. There are not such a very great number
of civilians, and a deformed man was shorre to have
attracted attention. I spent a day in the search, and
by evening this very evening, Watson, I had run him down.
The man's name is Henry Wood, and he lives in
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lodgings in this same street in which the ladies met him.
He has only been five days in the place. In
the character of a registration agent, I had a most
interesting gossip with his landlady. The man is by trade
a conjurer and performer, going round the canteens after nightfall
and giving a little entertainment at each He carries some
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creature about with him in that box, about which the
landlady seemed to be in considerable trepidation, for she had
never seen an animal like it. He uses it in
some of his tricks, according to her account, so much
the woman was able to tell me, And also that
it was a wonder the man lived, seeing how twisted
he was, and that he spoke in a strange tongue sometimes,
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and that for the last two nights she had heard
him groaning and weeping in his bedroom. He was all
right as far as money went. But in his deposit
he had given her what looked like a bad florin.
She showed it to me, Watson, and it was an
Indian rupee. So now, my dear fellow, you see exactly
how we stand and why it is I want you.
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It is perfectly plain that after the ladies parted from
this man, he followed them at a distance, that he
saw the quarrel between husband and wife through the window
that he rushed in, and that the creature which he
carried in his box got loose. That is all very certain.
But he is the only person in this world who
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can tell us exactly what happened in that room, And
you intend to ask him most certainly, but in the
presence of a witness, and I am the witness. If
you will be so good if he can clear the
matter up, well and good. If he refuses, we have
no alternative but to apply for a warrant. But how
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do you know he'll be there when we return? You
may be sure that I took some precautions. I have
one of my Baker Street boys mounting guard over him,
who would stick to him like a burr. Go where
he might. We shall find him in Hudson Street to morrow, Watson.
And meanwhile, I should be the criminal myself if I
kept you out of bed any longer. It was midday
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when we found ourselves at the scene of the tragedy,
and under my companion's guidance, we made our way at
once to Hudson Street. In spite of his capacity for
concealing his emotions, I could easily see that Holmes was
in a state of suppressed excitement, while I was myself
tingling with that half sporting, half intellectual pleasure which I
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invariably experienced when I associated myself with him in his investigations.
This is a street, said he, as we turned into
a short thoroughfare lined with plain, two storied brick houses. Ah,
here is Simpson to report? Is in all right? Mister
Ewmes cried, a small street arab running up to us.
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Good Simpson, said Holmes, patting him on the head. Come along, Watson,
this is the house. He sent in his card with
a message that he had come on important business. And
a moment later we were face to face with the
man whom we had come to see. In spite of
the warm weather. He was crouching over a fire, and
(31:53):
the little room was like an oven. The man sat
all twisted and huddled in his chair in a way
which gave an indescribable impression of deformity. But the face
which he turned towards us, though worn and swathy, must
at some time have been remarkable for its beauty. He
looked suspiciously at us now out of yellow shot, bilious eyes,
(32:15):
and without speaking or rising, he waved towards two chairs.
Mister Henry Wood, late of India, I believe, said Holmes affably.
I've come over this little matter of Colonel Berklay's death.
What should I know about that? That's what I want
to ascertain. You know. I suppose that unless the matter
(32:38):
is cleared up. Missus Barclay, who is an old friend
of yours, will in all probability be tried for murder.
The man gave a violent start. I don't know who
you are, he cried, nor how you come to know
what you do know? But will you swear that this
is true, that you tell me why they are only
(32:59):
waiting for her to come to her senses to arrest her.
My god, are you in the police yourself? No? What
business is it of yours? Then it's every man's business
to see justice done. You can take my word that
she is innocent, then you are guilty. No, I'm not
(33:19):
who killed Colonel James Barclay. Then it was a just
providence that killed him. But mind you this that if
I had knocked his brains out, as it was in
my heart to do, he would have had no more
than his due from my hands. If his own guilty
conscience had not struck him down. It is likely enough
that I may have had his blood upon my soul.
(33:41):
You want me to tell the story, Well, I don't
know why I shouldn't, for there's no cause for me
to be ashamed of it. It was in this way, sir,
You see me now with my back like a camel,
and my ribs all awry. But there was a time
when Corporal Henry Wood was the smartest man in the
one hundred seventeenth foot. We were in India, then in cantonments,
(34:04):
at a place we'll call Bertie. Berkeley, who died the
other day, was sergeant in the same company as myself,
and the bell of the regiment. Ay, And the finest
girl that ever had the breath of life between her
lips was Nancy de Voy, the daughter of the color sergeant.
There were two men who loved her and one that
(34:24):
she loved. And you'll smile when you look at this
poor thing huddle before the fire and hear me say
that it was for my good looks that she loved me. Well.
Though I had her heart, her father was set upon
her marrying Berkley. I was a harem scarem reckless lad,
and he had had an education and was already marked
(34:46):
for the sword belt. But the girl held true to me,
and it seemed that I would have had her. When
the mutiny broke out and all hell was loose in
the country, we were shut up in Bertie, the regiment
of us with half a battery of artillery, a company
of Sikhs, and a lot of civilians and women folk.
(35:07):
There were ten thousand rebels around us, and they were
as keen as a set of terriers round a rack cage.
About the second week of it, our water gave out,
and it was a question whether we could communicate with
General Neill's column, which was moving up country. It was
our only chance, for we could not hope to fight
our way out with all the women and children. So
(35:28):
I volunteered to go out and to warn General Neil
of our danger. My offer was accepted, and I talked
it over with Sergeant Berkley, who was supposed to know
the ground better than any other man, and who drew
up a route by which I might get through the
rebel lines. At ten o'clock the same night I started
off upon my journey. There were a thousand lives to save,
(35:52):
but it was of only one that I was thinking
when I dropped over the wall that night. My way
ran down a dried up water core, which we hoped
would screen me from the enemy's sentries. But as I
crept round the corner of it, I walked right into
six of them, who were crouching down in the dark
waiting for me. In an instant, I was stunned with
(36:14):
a blow and bound hand and foot. But the real
blow was to my heart and not to my head.
For as I came to and listened to as much
as I could understand of their talk, I heard enough
to tell me that my comrade, the very man who
had arranged the way that I was to take, had
betrayed me by means of a native servant, into the
(36:35):
hands of the enemy. Well, there's no need for me
to dwell on that part of it, you know now
what James Berkley was capable of. Bertie was relieved by
Niil next day, but the rebels took me away with
them in their retreat, and it was many a long
year before ever I saw a white face again. I
(36:56):
was tortured and tried to get away, and was captured
and tortured again. You can see for yourselves the state
in which I was left. Some of them that fled
into Nepal took me with them, and then afterwards I
was up past our jealing. The hill folk up there
murdered the rebels who had me, and I became their
slave for a time until I escaped. But instead of
(37:19):
going south. I had to go north until I found
myself among the Afghans. There I wandered about for many
a year, and at last came back to the Punjab,
where I lived mostly among the natives, and picked up
a living by the conjuring tricks that I had learned.
What use was it for me, a wretched cripple, to
(37:40):
go back to England, or to make myself known to
my old comrades. Even my wish for revenge would not
make me do that. I had rather that Nancy, in
my old pals, should think of Harry Wood as having
died with a straight back, than see him living and
crawling with a stick like a chimpanzee. They never doubted
(38:00):
that I was dead, and I meant that they never should.
I heard that Barclay had married Nancy, and that he
was rising rapidly in the regiment. But even that did
not make me speak. But when one gets old, one
has a longing for home. For years, I've been dreaming
of the bright green fields and the hedges of England.
(38:23):
At last I determined to see them before I died.
I saved enough to bring me across, and then I
came here where the soldiers are, for I know their
ways and how to amuse them, and so earn enough
to keep me. Your narrative is most interesting, said Sherlock Holmes.
I have already heard of your meeting with Missus Barclay
(38:44):
and your mutual recognition. You then, as I understand, followed
her home and saw through the window an altercation between
her husband and her, in which she doubtless cast his
conduct to you in his teeth your own feelings overcame you,
and you across the lawn and broke in upon them,
I did, sir, And at the sight of me, he
(39:06):
looked as I have never seen a man look before.
And over he went, with his head on the fender.
But he was dead before he fell. I read death
on his face as plain as I can read that
text over the fire. The bare sight of me was
like a bullet through his guilty heart. And then then
Nancy fainted, and I caught up the key of the
(39:28):
door from her hand, intending to unlock it and get help.
But as I was doing it, it seemed to me
better to leave it alone and get away, for the
thing might look black against me, and anyway my secret
would be out if I were taken in my haste,
I thrust the key into my pocket and dropped my
stick while I was chasing Teddy, who had run up
(39:49):
the curtain. When I got him into his box from
which he had slipped, I was off as fast as
I could run. Who's Teddy, asked Holmes. The man leaned
over and pulled up the front of a kind of
hutch in the corner. In an instant out there slipped
a beautiful reddish brown creature, thin and lithe with the
(40:10):
legs of a stoat, a long, thin nose, and a
pair of the finest red eyes that ever I saw
in an animal's head. It's a mongoose, I cried. Well,
some call them that, and some call them ick Newman
said the man snake catcher is what I call them,
and Teddy is amazing quick on Cobra's I have one
(40:32):
here without the fangs, and Teddy catches it every night
to please the folk in the canteen. Any other point, sir, well,
we may have to apply to you again if missus
Barclay should prove to be in serious trouble. In that case,
of course I'd come forward. But if not, there is
(40:52):
no object in raking up this scandal against a dead
man foully as he has acted. You have at least
the satisfaction of knowing that, for thirty years of his life,
his conscience bitterly reproached him for this wicked deed. Ah,
there goes Major Murphy on the other side of the street. Goodbye, Wood.
I want to learn if anything has happened since yesterday.
(41:15):
We were in time to overtake the Major before he
reached the corner. Ah, Holmes, he said, I suppose you've
heard that all this fuss has come to nothing. What
then the inquest is just over. The medical evidence shows
conclusively that death was due to apoplexy. You see, it
was quite a simple case after all. Oh, remarkably superficial,
(41:38):
said Holmes, smiling. Come, Watson, I don't think we shall
be wanted in Aldershot any more. There's one thing, said I,
as we walked down to the station. If the husband's
name was James and the other was Henry, what was
this talk about, David? That one word, my dear Watson,
(41:59):
should have told me that the whole story. Had I
been the ideal reasoner which you are so fond of depicting,
It was evidently a term of reproach, of reproach. Yes,
David strayed a little occasionally, you know, and on one
occasion in the same direction as Sergeant James Barclay. You
(42:19):
remember the small fare of Uriah and Bathsheba. My biblical
knowledge is a trifle rusty, I fear, but you will
find the story in the first or second of Samuel,
End of the Crooked Man,
Adventure seven in the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
Adventure seven The Crooked Man. One summer night, a few
months after my marriage, I was seated by my own hearth,
smoking a last pipe and nodding over a novel. For
(00:22):
my day's work had been an exhausting one. My wife
had already gone upstairs, and the sound of the locking
of the hall door some time before told me that
the servants had also retired. I had risen from my
seat and was knocking out the ashes of my pipe
when I suddenly heard the clang of the bell. I
looked at the clock. It was a quarter to twelve.
(00:44):
This could not be a visitor at so late an hour,
A patient, evidently, and possibly an all night. Sitting with
a wry face, I went out into the hall and
opened the door. To my astonishment, it was Sherlock Holmes
who stood upon my step. Ah Watson said he, I
hope that I might not be too late to catch you,
(01:05):
My dear fellow, pray come in. You look surprised, and
no wonder relieve too. I fancy hum you still smoke
the Arcadia mixture of your bachelor days. Then there's no
mistaking that fluffy ash upon your coat. It's easy to
tell that you've been accustomed to wear a uniform, Watson,
You'll never pass as a pure bred civilian as long
(01:27):
as you keep that habit of carrying your handkerchief in
your sleeve. Could you put me up to night with pleasure?
You told me that you had bachelor quarters for one,
and I see that you have no gentleman visitor at present.
Your hat stand proclaims as much. I shall be delighted
if you will stay. Thank you. I'll fill the vacant peg. Then,
(01:50):
sorry to see that you've had the British workman in
the house. He's a token of evil. Not the drains,
I hope, No the gas ah. He has left two
nail marks from his boot upon your lunnoleum, just where
the light strikes it. No, thank you. I had some
supper at Waterloo, but i'll smoke a pipe with you
with pleasure. I handed him my pouch, and he seated
(02:14):
himself opposite to me and smoked for some time in silence.
I was well aware that nothing but business of importance
would have brought him to me at such an hour,
so I waited patiently until he should come round to it.
I see that you are professionally rather busy just now,
said he, glancing very keenly across at me. Yes, I've
(02:35):
had a busy day, I answered. It may seem very
foolish in your eyes. I added, but really I don't
know how you deduced it. Holmes chuckled to himself. I
have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson,
said he. When your round is a short one, you walk,
and when it is a long one, you use a hansom.
(02:55):
As I perceive that your boots, although used, are by
no means dirty, I cannot doubt that you are at
present busy enough to justify the handsome excellent I cried elementary,
said he. It is one of those instances where the
reasoner can produce an effect which seems remarkable to his neighbor,
because the latter has missed the one little point which
(03:19):
is the basis of the deduction. The same may be, said,
my dear fellow, for the effect of some of these
little sketches of yours, which is entirely meretricious, depending as
it does upon your retaining in your own hands some
factors in the problem which are never imparted to the reader.
Now at present, I am in the position of these
(03:40):
same readers, For I hold in this hand several threads
of one of the strangest cases which ever perplexed a
man's brain. And yet I lack the one or two
which are needful to complete my theory. But I'll have them, Watson,
I'll have them. His eyes kindled in a slight flush,
sprang into his thin cheeks for an instant. Only when
(04:05):
I glanced again, his face had resumed that red Indian
composure which had made so many regard him as a
machine rather than a man. The problem presents features of interest,
said he. I may even say exceptional features of interest.
I have already looked into the matter and have come,
as I think, within sight of my solution. If you
(04:26):
could accompany me in the last step, you might be
of considerable service to me. I should be delighted. Could
you go as far as Aldershot tomorrow. I've no doubt
Jackson would take my practice very good. I want to
start by the eleven ten from Waterloo. That would give
me time. Then, if you are not too sleepy. I
(04:49):
will give you a sketch of what has happened and
of what remains to be done. I was sleepy before
you came. I am quite wakeful now. I will compress
the story as far as may be done without omitting
anything vital to the case. It is conceivable that you
may even have read some account of the matter. It
(05:10):
is the supposed murder of Colonel Barclay of the Royal
Munsters at Aldershot, which I am investigating. I've heard nothing
of it. It has not excited much attention yet, except locally.
The facts are only two days old. Briefly they are these.
The Royal Monsters is, as you know, one of the
(05:30):
most famous Irish regiments in the British Army. It did
wonders both in the Crimea and the mutiny, and that
since that time distinguished itself upon every possible occasion. It
was commanded up to Monday night by James Barclay, a
gallant veteran who started as a full private, was raised
to commission rank for his bravery at the time of
(05:52):
the mutiny, and so lived to command the regiment in
which he had once carried a musket. Colonel Berkeley had
married at the time when he was a sergeant, and
his wife, whose maiden name was Miss Nancy Devoy, was
the daughter of a former color sergeant in the same corps.
There was, therefore, as can be imagined, some little social
(06:13):
friction when the young couple, or they were still young,
found themselves in their new surroundings. They appear, however, to
have quickly adapted themselves, and missus Berkley, as always I understand,
been as popular with the ladies of the regiment as
her husband was with his brother officers. I may add
that she was a woman of great beauty, and as
(06:35):
even now, when she has been married for upwards of
thirty years, she is still of a striking and queenly appearance.
Colonel Barklay's family life appears to have been a uniformly
happy one. Major Murphy, to whom I owe most of
my facts, assures me that he has never heard of
any misunderstanding between the pair. On the whole, he thinks
(06:56):
that Berkeley's devotion to his wife was greater than his
wife's to Barkley. He was acutely uneasy if he were
absent from her for a day. She, on the other hand,
though devoted and faithful, was less obtrusively affectionate. But they
were regarded in the regiment as the very model of
a middle aged couple. There was absolutely nothing in their
(07:18):
mutual relations to prepare people for the tragedy which was
to follow. Colonel Barclay himself seems to have had some
singular traits in his character. He was a dashing, jovial
old soldier in his usual mood, but there were occasions
on which he seemed to show himself capable of considerable
violence and vindictiveness. This side of his nature, however, appears
(07:41):
never to have been turned towards his wife. Another fact
which had struck Major Murphy and three out of five
of the other officers with whom I conversed was the
singular sort of depression which came upon him at times.
As the Major expressed it, the smile had often been
struck from his mouth, as if by some invisible hand,
(08:02):
when he has been joining the gaieties and chaff of
the mess table for days on end, when the mood
was on him, he has been sunk in the deepest gloom.
This and a certain tinge of superstition were the only
unusual traits in his character, which his brother officers had observed.
The latter peculiarity took the form of a dislike to
(08:23):
being left alone, especially after dark. This puerile feature in
a nature which was conspicuously manly, had often given rise
to comment and conjecture. The first Battalion of the Royal Munsters,
which is the old one hundred seventeenth, has been stationed
at Aldershot for some years. The married officers live out
(08:45):
of barracks, and the Colonel has during all this time
occupied a villa called Lachen, about half a mile from
the north camp. The house stands in its own grounds,
but the west side of it is not more than
thirty yards from the high road. The coachman and two
maids formed the staff of servants. These, with their master
and mistress, were the sole occupants of Lachene, for the
(09:07):
Berkeleys had no children, nor was it usual for them
to have resident visitors. Now for the events at Lachene
between nine and ten on the evening of last Monday,
Missus Berkley was, it appears, a member of the Roman
Catholic Church, and had interested herself very much in the
establishment of the Guild of Saint George, which was formed
(09:30):
in connection with the Watt Street Chapel for the purpose
of supplying the poor with cast off clothing. A meeting
of the guild had been held that evening at eight,
and Missus Berkeley had hurried over her dinner in order
to be present at it. When leaving the house, she
was heard by the coachman to make some commonplace remark
to her husband and to assure him that she would
(09:51):
be back before very long. She then called for missus Morrison,
a young lady who lives in the next villa, and
the two when off together to their meeting. It lasted
forty minutes, and at a quarter past nine, Missus Berkeley
returned home, having left miss Morrison at her door as
she passed. There's a room which is used as a
(10:14):
morning room at Lachine. This faces the road and opens
by a large glass folding door onto the lawn. The
lawn is thirty yards across and is only divided from
the highway by a low wall with an iron rail
above it. It was into this room that Missus Berkley
went upon her return. The blinds were not down, for
(10:36):
the room was seldom used in the evening, but Missus
Barkley herself lit the lamp, and then rang the bell,
asking Jane Stewart, the housemaid, to bring her a cup
of tea, which was quite contrary to her usual habits.
The colonel had been sitting in the dining room, but
hearing that his wife had returned, he joined her in
the morning room. The coachman saw him cross the hall
(11:00):
and enter it. He was never seen again alive. The tea,
which had been ordered, was brought up at the end
of ten minutes, but the maid, as she approached the door,
was surprised to hear the voices of her master and
mistress in furious altercation. She knocked without receiving any answer,
and even turned the handle, but only to find that
(11:22):
the door was locked upon the inside. Naturally enough, she
ran down to tell the cook, and the two women
with the coachman came up into the hall and listened
to the dispute, which was still raging. They all agreed
that only two voices were to be heard, those of
Berkeley and of his wife. Berkeley's remarks were subdued and abrupt,
(11:44):
so that none of them were audible to the listeners.
The ladies, on the other hand, were most bitter, and
when she raised her voice could be plainly heard. You coward,
she repeated, over and over again, What can be done,
What can be done? Now give me back my LuFe.
I will never so much as breathe the same air
with you again, You cowered, you coward. Those were scraps
(12:07):
of her conversation, ending in a sudden, dreadful cry in
the man's voice, with a crash and a piercing scream
from the woman. Convinced that some tragedy had occurred, the
coachman rushed to the door and strove to force it,
while scream after scream issued from within. He was unable, however,
(12:28):
to make his way in, and the maids were too
distracted with fear to be of any assistance to him.
A sudden thought struck him, however, and he ran through
the hall door and round to the lawn, upon which
the long French windows open. One side of the window
was open, which I understand was quite usual in the
(12:49):
summer time, and he passed without difficulty into the room.
His mistress had ceased to scream and was stretched insensible
upon a couch, while with his feet tilted over the
side of an armchair, and his head. Upon the ground
near the corner of the fender was lying the unfortunate
soldier stone dead in a pool of his own blood. Naturally,
(13:12):
the coachman's first thought, on finding that he could do
nothing for his master, was to open the door. But
here an unexpected and singular difficulty presented itself. The key
was not in the inner side of the door, nor
could he find it anywhere in the room. He went
out again, therefore through the window, and having obtained the
(13:34):
help of a policeman and of a medical man, he
returned the lady, against whom naturally the strongest suspicion rested,
was removed to her room, still in a state of insensibility.
The colonel's body was then placed upon the sofa, and
a careful examination made of the scene of the tragedy.
(13:54):
The injury from which the unfortunate veteran was suffering was
found to be a jagged cut some two inches long
at the back part of his head, which had evidently
been caused by a violent blow from a blunt weapon.
Nor was it difficult to guess what that weapon may
have been. Upon the floor, close to the body was
(14:16):
lying a singular club of hard carved wood with a
bone handle. The colonel possessed a varied collection of weapons
brought from the different countries in which he had fought,
and it is conjectured by the police that his club
was among his trophies. The servants deny having seen it before,
but among the numerous curiosities in the house, it is
(14:38):
possible that it may have been overlooked. Nothing else of
importance was discovered in the room by the police, save
the inexplicable fact that neither upon Missus Barclay's person, nor
upon that of the victim, nor in any part of
the room, was the missing key to be found. The
door had eventually to be opened by a locksmith from Aldershot.
(15:02):
That was the state of things, Watson, when upon the
Tuesday morning, I, at the request of Major Murphy, went
down to Aldershot to supplement the efforts of the police.
I think that you will acknowledge that the problem was
already one of interest, but my observations soon made me
realize that it was, in truth much more extraordinary than
(15:22):
would at first sight appear. Before examining the room, I
cross questioned the servants, but only succeeded in eliciting the
facts which I have already stated. One other detail of
interest was remembered by Jane Stewart, the housemaid. You will
remember that, on hearing the sound of the quarrel, she
descended and returned with the other servants. On that first occasion,
(15:46):
when she was alone, she says that the voices of
her master and mistress were sunk so low that she
could hear hardly anything, and judged by their tones rather
than their words, that they had fallen out on my
pressing her. However, she remembered that she heard the word
David uttered twice by the lady. The point is of
(16:07):
the utmost importance as guiding us towards the reason of
the sudden quarrel. The colonel's name, you remember, was James.
There was one thing in the case which had made
the deepest impression both upon the servants and the police.
This was the contortion of the colonel's face. It had set,
according to their account, into the most dreadful expression of
(16:30):
fear and horror which a human countenance is capable of assuming.
More than one person fainted at the mere sight of him.
So terrible was the effect. It was quite certain that
he had foreseen his fate, and that it had caused
him the utmost horror. This, of course, fitted in well
enough with the police theory if the colonel could have
(16:52):
seen his wife making a murderous attack upon him, Nor
was the fact of the wound being on the back
of his head a fatal objection to this, as he
might have turned to avoid the blow. No information could
be got from the lady herself, who was temporarily insane
from an acute attack of brain fever. From the police,
(17:13):
I learned that Miss Morrison, who you remember, went out
that evening with missus Barclay, denied having any knowledge of
what it was which had caused the ill humor in
which her companion had returned. Having gathered these facts, Watson
I smoked several pipes over them, trying to separate those
which were crucial from others which were merely incidental. There
(17:34):
could be no question that the most distinctive and suggestive
point in the case was the singular disappearance of the
door key. A most careful search had failed to discover
it in the room. Therefore it must have been taken
from it. But neither the colonel nor the colonel's wife
could have taken it. That was perfectly clear. Therefore, a
(17:58):
third person must have entered the room, and that third
person could only have come in through the window. It
seemed to me that a careful examination of the room
and the lawn might possibly reveal some traces of this
mysterious individual. You know my methods, Watson. There was not
one of them which I did not apply to the inquiry,
(18:19):
and it ended by my discovering traces, but very different
ones from those which I had expected. There had been
a man in the room, and he had crossed the
lawn coming from the road. I was able to obtain
five very clear impressions of his footmarks, one in the
roadway itself at the point where he had climbed the
(18:40):
low wall, two on the lawn, and two very faint
ones upon the stained boards near the window where he
had entered. He had apparently rushed across the lawn, for
his toe marks were much deeper than his heels. But
it was not the man who surprised me. It was
his companion. His companion Holmes pulled a large sheet of
(19:03):
tissue paper out of his pocket and carefully unfolded it
upon his knee. What do you make of that? He asked?
The paper was covered with the tracings of the footmarks
of some small animal. It had five well marked footpads,
an indication of long nails, and the whole print might
(19:24):
be nearly as large as a dessert spoon. It's a dog,
said I. Did you ever hear of a dog running
up a curtain? I found distinct traces that this creature
had done so. A monkey? Then, but it is not
the print of a monkey. What can it be, then,
(19:47):
neither dog, nor cat, nor monkey, nor any creature that
we are familiar with. I have tried to reconstruct it
from the measurements. Here are four prints where the beast
has been standing motionless. You see that it is no
less than fifteen inches from four foot to hind. Add
to that the length of neck and head, and you
get a creature not much less than two feet long,
(20:10):
probably more if there's any tail. But now observe this
other measurement. The animal has been moving, and we have
the length of its stride. In each case it is
only about three inches. You have an indication, you see
of a long body with very short legs attached to it.
It has not been considerate enough to leave any of
(20:31):
its hair behind it. But its general shape must be
what I have indicated, and it can run up a curtain,
and it is carnivorous. How do you deduce that because
it ran up the curtain a canary's cage was hanging
in the window, and its aim seems to have been
to get at the bird? Then what was the beast? Ah?
(20:55):
If I could give it a name, it might go
a long way towards solving the case. On the whole,
it was probably some creature of the weasel and stoat tribe.
And yet it is larger than any of these that
I have seen. But what had it to do with
a crime? That also is still obscure. But we have
(21:15):
learned a good deal, you perceive. We know that a
man stood in the road looking at the quarrel between
the barclays, the blinds were up and the room lighted.
We know also that he ran across the lawn, entered
the room accompanied by a strange animal, and that he
either struck the colonel, or, as is equally possible, that
the colonel fell down from sheer fright at the sight
(21:38):
of him and cut his head on the corner of
the fender. Finally, we have the curious fact that the
intruder carried away the key with him when he left.
Your discoveries seemed to have left the business more obscure
than it was before, said I. Quite so. They undoubtedly
showed that the affair was much deeper than was at
(21:59):
first conjectured. I thought the matter over, and I came
to the conclusion that I must approach the case from
another aspect. But really, Watson, I'm keeping you up, and
I might just as well tell you all this on
our way to Aldershot tomorrow. Thank you, you've gone rather
too far to stop. It is quite certain that when
(22:21):
missus Barclay left the house at half past seven, she
was on good terms with her husband. She was never,
as I think I've said, ostentatiously affectionate, but she was
heard by the coachman chatting with the colonel in a
friendly fashion. Now it was equally certain that immediately on
her return she had gone to the room in which
(22:42):
she was least likely to see, her husband, had flown
to tea as an agitated woman will, and finally, on
his coming in to her, had broken into violent recriminations. Therefore,
something had occurred between seven thirty and nine o'clock which
had completely altered her feelings towards him. But miss Morrison
(23:03):
had been with her during the whole of that hour
and a half. It was absolutely certain. Therefore, in spite
of her denial, that she must know something of the matter.
My first conjecture was that possibly there had been some
passages between this young lady and the old soldier, which
the former had now confessed to the wife. That would
(23:23):
account for the angry return, and also for the girl's
denial that anything had occurred. Nor would it be entirely
incompatible with most of the words overheard. But there was
the reference to David, and there was the known affection
of the colonel for his wife to weigh against it,
to say nothing of the tragic intrusion of this other man,
(23:45):
which might of course be entirely disconnected with what had
gone before. It was not easy to pick one's steps,
but on the whole I was inclined to dismiss the
idea that there had been anything between the colonel and
miss Morrison. Ever, convinced that the young lady held a
clue as to what it was which had turned Missus
Barclay to hatred of her husband, I took the obvious course, therefore,
(24:10):
of calling upon Miss m of explaining to her that
I was perfectly certain that she held the facts in
her possession, and of assuring her that her friend, missus Barclay,
might find herself in the dock upon a capital charge
unless the matter were cleared up. Miss Morrison is a
little ethereal slip of a girl with timid eyes and
(24:30):
blonde hair. But I found her by no means wanting
in shrewdness and common sense. She sat thinking for some
time after I had spoken, and then turning to me
with a brisk air of resolution, she broke into a
remarkable statement, which I'll condense for your benefit. I promise
my friend that I would say nothing of the matter.
(24:53):
And a promise is a promise, said she. But if
I can really help her when so serious a charge
which is laid against her, and when her own mouth,
poor darling, is closed by illness, then I think I
am absolved from my promise. I will tell you exactly
what happened. Upon Monday evening, we were returning from the
(25:14):
Watt Street Mission about a quarter to nine o'clock. On
our way, we had to pass through Hudson Street, which
is a very quiet thoroughfare. There is only one lamp
in it, upon the left hand side, and as we
approached this lamp, I saw a man coming towards us
with his back very bent and something like a box
(25:34):
slung over one of his shoulders. He appeared to be deformed,
for he carried his head low and walked with his
knees bent. We were passing him when he raised his
face to look at us in the circle of light
thrown by the lamp, and as he did so, he
stopped and screamed out in a dreadful voice, My god,
it's Nancy. Missus Barkley turned as white as death and
(25:59):
would have fall and down had the dreadful looking creature
not caught hold of her. I was going to call
for the police, but she, to my surprise, spoke quite
civilly to the fellow. I thought you'd been dead this
thirty years, Henry, said she in a shaking voice. So
I have said he and it was awful to hear
(26:20):
the tones that he said it in. He had a
very dark, fearsome face and a gleam in his eyes
that comes back to me in my dreams. His hair
and whiskers were shot with gray and his face was
all crinkled and puckered like a withered apple. Just walk
on a little way, dear, said missus Barclay. I won't
(26:41):
have a word with this man. There's nothing to be
afraid of. She tried to speak boldly, but she was
still deadly pale, and could hardly get her words out
for the trembling of her lips. I did as she
asked me, and they talked together for a few minutes.
Then she came down the street with her eyes blazing,
and I saw the crippled wretch standing by the lamp
(27:02):
post and shaking his clenched fists in the air, as
if you were mad with rage. She never said a
word until we were at the door again, when she
took me by the hand and begged me to tell
no one what had happened. It's an old acquaintance of
mine who's come down in the world, said she. When
I promised her I would say nothing, she kissed me,
(27:26):
and I have never seen her since. I've told you
now the whole truth, and if I withheld it from
the police, it is because I did not realize then
the danger in which my dear friend stood. I know
that it can only be to her advantage that everything
should be known. There was her statement, Watson, and to me,
(27:47):
as you can imagine, it was like a light on
a dark night. Everything which had been disconnected before began
at once to assume its true place, and I had
a shadowy presentiment of the whole sequence of events. My
next step, obviously, was to find the man who had
produced such a remarkable impression upon missus Barclay. If he
(28:09):
were still in Aldershot, it should not be a very
difficult matter. There are not such a very great number
of civilians, and a deformed man was shorre to have
attracted attention. I spent a day in the search, and
by evening this very evening, Watson, I had run him down.
The man's name is Henry Wood, and he lives in
(28:30):
lodgings in this same street in which the ladies met him.
He has only been five days in the place. In
the character of a registration agent, I had a most
interesting gossip with his landlady. The man is by trade
a conjurer and performer, going round the canteens after nightfall
and giving a little entertainment at each He carries some
(28:53):
creature about with him in that box, about which the
landlady seemed to be in considerable trepidation, for she had
never seen an animal like it. He uses it in
some of his tricks, according to her account, so much
the woman was able to tell me, And also that
it was a wonder the man lived, seeing how twisted
he was, and that he spoke in a strange tongue sometimes,
(29:16):
and that for the last two nights she had heard
him groaning and weeping in his bedroom. He was all
right as far as money went. But in his deposit
he had given her what looked like a bad florin.
She showed it to me, Watson, and it was an
Indian rupee. So now, my dear fellow, you see exactly
how we stand and why it is I want you.
(29:39):
It is perfectly plain that after the ladies parted from
this man, he followed them at a distance, that he
saw the quarrel between husband and wife through the window
that he rushed in, and that the creature which he
carried in his box got loose. That is all very certain.
But he is the only person in this world who
(30:00):
can tell us exactly what happened in that room, And
you intend to ask him most certainly, but in the
presence of a witness, and I am the witness. If
you will be so good if he can clear the
matter up, well and good. If he refuses, we have
no alternative but to apply for a warrant. But how
(30:23):
do you know he'll be there when we return? You
may be sure that I took some precautions. I have
one of my Baker Street boys mounting guard over him,
who would stick to him like a burr. Go where
he might. We shall find him in Hudson Street to morrow, Watson.
And meanwhile, I should be the criminal myself if I
kept you out of bed any longer. It was midday
(30:48):
when we found ourselves at the scene of the tragedy,
and under my companion's guidance, we made our way at
once to Hudson Street. In spite of his capacity for
concealing his emotions, I could easily see that Holmes was
in a state of suppressed excitement, while I was myself
tingling with that half sporting, half intellectual pleasure which I
(31:10):
invariably experienced when I associated myself with him in his investigations.
This is a street, said he, as we turned into
a short thoroughfare lined with plain, two storied brick houses. Ah,
here is Simpson to report? Is in all right? Mister
Ewmes cried, a small street arab running up to us.
(31:33):
Good Simpson, said Holmes, patting him on the head. Come along, Watson,
this is the house. He sent in his card with
a message that he had come on important business. And
a moment later we were face to face with the
man whom we had come to see. In spite of
the warm weather. He was crouching over a fire, and
(31:53):
the little room was like an oven. The man sat
all twisted and huddled in his chair in a way
which gave an indescribable impression of deformity. But the face
which he turned towards us, though worn and swathy, must
at some time have been remarkable for its beauty. He
looked suspiciously at us now out of yellow shot, bilious eyes,
(32:15):
and without speaking or rising, he waved towards two chairs.
Mister Henry Wood, late of India, I believe, said Holmes affably.
I've come over this little matter of Colonel Berklay's death.
What should I know about that? That's what I want
to ascertain. You know. I suppose that unless the matter
(32:38):
is cleared up. Missus Barclay, who is an old friend
of yours, will in all probability be tried for murder.
The man gave a violent start. I don't know who
you are, he cried, nor how you come to know
what you do know? But will you swear that this
is true, that you tell me why they are only
(32:59):
waiting for her to come to her senses to arrest her.
My god, are you in the police yourself? No? What
business is it of yours? Then it's every man's business
to see justice done. You can take my word that
she is innocent, then you are guilty. No, I'm not
(33:19):
who killed Colonel James Barclay. Then it was a just
providence that killed him. But mind you this that if
I had knocked his brains out, as it was in
my heart to do, he would have had no more
than his due from my hands. If his own guilty
conscience had not struck him down. It is likely enough
that I may have had his blood upon my soul.
(33:41):
You want me to tell the story, Well, I don't
know why I shouldn't, for there's no cause for me
to be ashamed of it. It was in this way, sir,
You see me now with my back like a camel,
and my ribs all awry. But there was a time
when Corporal Henry Wood was the smartest man in the
one hundred seventeenth foot. We were in India, then in cantonments,
(34:04):
at a place we'll call Bertie. Berkeley, who died the
other day, was sergeant in the same company as myself,
and the bell of the regiment. Ay, And the finest
girl that ever had the breath of life between her
lips was Nancy de Voy, the daughter of the color sergeant.
There were two men who loved her and one that
(34:24):
she loved. And you'll smile when you look at this
poor thing huddle before the fire and hear me say
that it was for my good looks that she loved me. Well.
Though I had her heart, her father was set upon
her marrying Berkley. I was a harem scarem reckless lad,
and he had had an education and was already marked
(34:46):
for the sword belt. But the girl held true to me,
and it seemed that I would have had her. When
the mutiny broke out and all hell was loose in
the country, we were shut up in Bertie, the regiment
of us with half a battery of artillery, a company
of Sikhs, and a lot of civilians and women folk.
(35:07):
There were ten thousand rebels around us, and they were
as keen as a set of terriers round a rack cage.
About the second week of it, our water gave out,
and it was a question whether we could communicate with
General Neill's column, which was moving up country. It was
our only chance, for we could not hope to fight
our way out with all the women and children. So
(35:28):
I volunteered to go out and to warn General Neil
of our danger. My offer was accepted, and I talked
it over with Sergeant Berkley, who was supposed to know
the ground better than any other man, and who drew
up a route by which I might get through the
rebel lines. At ten o'clock the same night I started
off upon my journey. There were a thousand lives to save,
(35:52):
but it was of only one that I was thinking
when I dropped over the wall that night. My way
ran down a dried up water core, which we hoped
would screen me from the enemy's sentries. But as I
crept round the corner of it, I walked right into
six of them, who were crouching down in the dark
waiting for me. In an instant, I was stunned with
(36:14):
a blow and bound hand and foot. But the real
blow was to my heart and not to my head.
For as I came to and listened to as much
as I could understand of their talk, I heard enough
to tell me that my comrade, the very man who
had arranged the way that I was to take, had
betrayed me by means of a native servant, into the
(36:35):
hands of the enemy. Well, there's no need for me
to dwell on that part of it, you know now
what James Berkley was capable of. Bertie was relieved by
Niil next day, but the rebels took me away with
them in their retreat, and it was many a long
year before ever I saw a white face again. I
(36:56):
was tortured and tried to get away, and was captured
and tortured again. You can see for yourselves the state
in which I was left. Some of them that fled
into Nepal took me with them, and then afterwards I
was up past our jealing. The hill folk up there
murdered the rebels who had me, and I became their
slave for a time until I escaped. But instead of
(37:19):
going south. I had to go north until I found
myself among the Afghans. There I wandered about for many
a year, and at last came back to the Punjab,
where I lived mostly among the natives, and picked up
a living by the conjuring tricks that I had learned.
What use was it for me, a wretched cripple, to
(37:40):
go back to England, or to make myself known to
my old comrades. Even my wish for revenge would not
make me do that. I had rather that Nancy, in
my old pals, should think of Harry Wood as having
died with a straight back, than see him living and
crawling with a stick like a chimpanzee. They never doubted
(38:00):
that I was dead, and I meant that they never should.
I heard that Barclay had married Nancy, and that he
was rising rapidly in the regiment. But even that did
not make me speak. But when one gets old, one
has a longing for home. For years, I've been dreaming
of the bright green fields and the hedges of England.
(38:23):
At last I determined to see them before I died.
I saved enough to bring me across, and then I
came here where the soldiers are, for I know their
ways and how to amuse them, and so earn enough
to keep me. Your narrative is most interesting, said Sherlock Holmes.
I have already heard of your meeting with Missus Barclay
(38:44):
and your mutual recognition. You then, as I understand, followed
her home and saw through the window an altercation between
her husband and her, in which she doubtless cast his
conduct to you in his teeth your own feelings overcame you,
and you across the lawn and broke in upon them,
I did, sir, And at the sight of me, he
(39:06):
looked as I have never seen a man look before.
And over he went, with his head on the fender.
But he was dead before he fell. I read death
on his face as plain as I can read that
text over the fire. The bare sight of me was
like a bullet through his guilty heart. And then then
Nancy fainted, and I caught up the key of the
(39:28):
door from her hand, intending to unlock it and get help.
But as I was doing it, it seemed to me
better to leave it alone and get away, for the
thing might look black against me, and anyway my secret
would be out if I were taken in my haste,
I thrust the key into my pocket and dropped my
stick while I was chasing Teddy, who had run up
(39:49):
the curtain. When I got him into his box from
which he had slipped, I was off as fast as
I could run. Who's Teddy, asked Holmes. The man leaned
over and pulled up the front of a kind of
hutch in the corner. In an instant out there slipped
a beautiful reddish brown creature, thin and lithe with the
(40:10):
legs of a stoat, a long, thin nose, and a
pair of the finest red eyes that ever I saw
in an animal's head. It's a mongoose, I cried. Well,
some call them that, and some call them ick Newman
said the man snake catcher is what I call them,
and Teddy is amazing quick on Cobra's I have one
(40:32):
here without the fangs, and Teddy catches it every night
to please the folk in the canteen. Any other point, sir, well,
we may have to apply to you again if missus
Barclay should prove to be in serious trouble. In that case,
of course I'd come forward. But if not, there is
(40:52):
no object in raking up this scandal against a dead
man foully as he has acted. You have at least
the satisfaction of knowing that, for thirty years of his life,
his conscience bitterly reproached him for this wicked deed. Ah,
there goes Major Murphy on the other side of the street. Goodbye, Wood.
I want to learn if anything has happened since yesterday.
(41:15):
We were in time to overtake the Major before he
reached the corner. Ah, Holmes, he said, I suppose you've
heard that all this fuss has come to nothing. What
then the inquest is just over. The medical evidence shows
conclusively that death was due to apoplexy. You see, it
was quite a simple case after all. Oh, remarkably superficial,
(41:38):
said Holmes, smiling. Come, Watson, I don't think we shall
be wanted in Aldershot any more. There's one thing, said I,
as we walked down to the station. If the husband's
name was James and the other was Henry, what was
this talk about, David? That one word, my dear Watson,
(41:59):
should have told me that the whole story. Had I
been the ideal reasoner which you are so fond of depicting,
It was evidently a term of reproach, of reproach. Yes,
David strayed a little occasionally, you know, and on one
occasion in the same direction as Sergeant James Barclay. You
(42:19):
remember the small fare of Uriah and Bathsheba. My biblical
knowledge is a trifle rusty, I fear, but you will
find the story in the first or second of Samuel,
End of the Crooked Man,
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