                       THE ADVENTURE OF THE EMPTY HOUSE

     It was in the spring of the year 1894 that all London was
interested, and the fashionable world dismayed, by the murder of the
Honourable Ronald Adair under most unusual and inexplicable
circumstances.  The public has already learned those particulars of
the crime which came out in the police investigation, but a good deal
was suppressed upon that occasion, since the case for the prosecution
was so overwhelmingly strong that it was not necessary to bring
forward all the facts.  Only now, at the end of nearly ten years, am I
allowed to supply those missing links which make up the whole of that
remarkable chain.  The crime was of interest in itself, but that
interest was as nothing to me compared to the inconceivable sequel,
which afforded me the greatest shock and surprise of any event in my
adventurous life.  Even now, after this long interval, I find myself
thrilling as I think of it, and feeling once more that sudden flood of
joy, amazement, and incredulity which utterly submerged my mind.  Let
me say to that public, which has shown some interest in those glimpses
which I have occasionally given them of the thoughts and actions of a
very remarkable man, that they are not to blame me if I have not
shared my knowledge with them, for I should have considered it my
first duty to do so, had I not been barred by a positive prohibition
from his own lips, which was only withdrawn upon the third of last
month.
     It can be imagined that my close intimacy with Sherlock Holmes
had interested me deeply in crime, and that after his disappearance I
never failed to read with care the various problems which came before
the public.  And I even attempted, more than once, for my own private
satisfaction, to employ his methods in their solution, though with
indifferent success.  There was none, however, which appealed to me
like this tragedy of Ronald Adair.  As I read the evidence at the
inquest, which led up to a verdict of wilful murder against some
person or persons unknown, I realized more clearly than I had ever
done the loss which the community had sustained by the death of
Sherlock Holmes.  There were points about this strange business which
would, I was sure, have specially appealed to him, and the efforts of
the police would have been supplemented, or more probably anticipated,
by the trained observation and the alert mind of the first criminal
agent in Europe.  All day, as I drove upon my round, I turned over the
case in my mind and found no explanation which appeared to me to be
adequate.  At the risk of telling a twice-told tale, I will
recapitulate the facts as they were known to the public at the
conclusion of the inquest.
     The Honourable Ronald Adair was the second son of the Earl of
Maynooth, at that time governor of one of the Australian colonies. 
Adair's mother had returned from Australia to undergo the operation
for cataract, and she, her son Ronald, and her daughter Hilda were
living together at 427 Park Lane.  The youth moved in the best society
-- had, so far as was known, no enemies and no particular vices.  He
had been engaged to Miss Edith Woodley, of Carstairs, but the
engagement had been broken off by mutual consent some months before,
and there was no sign that it had left any very profound feeling
behind it.  For the rest of the man's life moved in a narrow and
conventional circle, for his habits were quiet and his nature
unemotional.  Yet it was upon this easy-going young aristocrat that
death came, in most strange and unexpected form, between the hours of
ten and eleven-twenty on the night of March 30, 1894.
     Ronald Adair was fond of cards -- playing continually, but never
for such stakes as would hurt him.  He was a member of the Baldwin,
the Cavendish, and the Bagatelle card clubs.  It was shown that, after
dinner on the day of his death, he had played a rubber of whist at the
latter club.  He had also played there in the afternoon.  The evidence
of those who had played with him -- Mr. Murray, Sir John Hardy, and
Colonel Moran -- showed that the game was whist, and that there was a
fairly equal fall of the cards.  Adair might have lost five pounds,
but not more.  His fortune was a considerable one, and such a loss
could not in any way affect him.  He had played nearly every day at
one club or other, but he was a cautious player, and usually rose a
winner.  It came out in evidence that, in partnership with Colonel
Moran, he had actually won as much as four hundred and twenty pounds
in a sitting, some weeks before, from Godfrey Milner and Lord
Balmoral.  So much for his recent history as it came out at the
inquest.
     On the evening of the crime, he returned from the club exactly at
ten.  His mother and sister were out spending the evening with a
relation.  The servant deposed that she heard him enter the front room
on the second floor, generally used as his sitting-room.  She had lit
a fire there, and as it smoked she had opened the window.  No sound
was heard from the room until eleven-twenty, the hour of the return of
Lady Maynooth and her daughter.  Desiring to say good-night, she
attempted to enter her son's room.  The door was locked on the inside,
and no answer could be got to their cries and knocking.  Help was
obtained, and the door forced.  The unfortunate young man was found
lying near the table.  His head had been horribly mutilated by an
expanding revolver bullet, but no weapon of any sort was to be found
in the room.  On the table lay two banknotes for ten pounds each and
seventeen pounds ten in silver and gold, the money arranged in little
piles of varying amount.  There were some figures also upon a sheet of
paper, with the names of some club friends opposite to them, from
which it was conjectured that before his death he was endeavouring to
make out his losses or winnings at cards.
     A minute examination of the circumstances served only to make the
case more complex.  In the first place, no reason could be given why
the young man should have fastened the door upon the inside.  There
was the possibility that the murderer had done this, and had
afterwards escaped by the window.  The drop was at least twenty feet,
however, and a bed of crocuses in full bloom lay beneath.  Neither the
flowers nor the earth showed any sign of having been disturbed, nor
were there any marks upon the narrow strip of grass which separated
the house from the road.  Apparently, therefore, it was the young man
himself who had fastened the door.  But how did he come by his death? 
No one could have climbed up to the window without leaving traces. 
Suppose a man had fired through the window, he would indeed be a
remarkable shot who could with a revolver inflict so deadly a wound. 
Again, Park Lane is a frequented thoroughfare; there is a cab stand
within a hundred yards of the house.  No one had heard a shot.  And
yet there was the dead man, and there the revolver bullet, which had
mushroomed out, as soft-nosed bullets will, and so inflicted a wound
which must have caused instantaneous death.  Such were the
circumstances of the Park Lane Mystery, which were further complicated
by entire absence of motive, since, as I have said, young Adair was
not known to have any enemy, and no attempt had been made to remove
the money or valuables in the room.
     All day I turned these facts over in my mind, endeavouring to hit
upon some theory which could reconcile them all, and to find that line
of least resistance which my poor friend had declared to be the
starting-point of every investigation.  I confess that I made little
progress.  In the evening I strolled across the Park, and found myself
about six o'clock at the Oxford Street end of Park Lane.  A group of
loafers upon the pavements, all staring up at a particular window,
directed me to the house which I had come to see.  A tall, thin man
with coloured glasses, whom I strongly suspected of being a
plain-clothes detective, was pointing out some theory of his own,
while the others crowded round to listen to what he said.  I got as
near him as I could, but his observations seemed to me to be absurd,
so I withdrew again in some disgust.  As I did so I struck against an
elderly, deformed man, who had been behind me, and I knocked down
several books which he was carrying.  I remember that as I picked them
up, I observed the title of one of them, The Origin of Tree Worship,
and it struck me that the fellow must be some poor bibliophile, who,
either as a trade or as a hobby, was a collector of obscure volumes. 
I endeavoured to apologize for the accident, but it was evident that
these books which I had so unfortunately maltreated were very precious
objects in the eyes of their owner.  With a snarl of contempt he
turned upon his heel, and I saw his curved back and white
side-whiskers disappear among the throng.
     My observations of No. 427 Park Lane did little to clear up the
problem in which I was interested.  The house was separated from the
street by a low wall and railing, the whole not more than five feet
high.  It was perfectly easy, therefore, for anyone to get into the
garden, but the window was entirely inaccessible, since there was no
waterpipe or anything which could help the most active man to climb
it.  More puzzled than ever, I retraced my steps to Kensington.  I had
not been in my study five minutes when the maid entered to say that a
person desired to see me.  To my astonishment it was none other than
my strange old book collector, his sharp, wizened face peering out
from a frame of white hair, and his precious volumes, a dozen of them
at least, wedged under his right arm.
     "You're surprised to see me, sir," said he, in a strange,
croaking voice.
     I acknowledged that I was.
     "Well, I've a conscience, sir, and when I chanced to see you go
into this house, as I came hobbling after you, I thought to myself,
I'll just step in and see that kind gentleman, and tell him that if I
was a bit gruff in my manner there was not any harm meant, and that I
am much obliged to him for picking up my books."
     "You make too much of a trifle," said I.  "May I ask how you knew
who I was?"
     "Well, sir, if it isn't too great a liberty, I am a neighbour of
yours, for you'll find my little bookshop at the corner of Church
Street, and very happy to see you, I am sure.  Maybe you collect
yourself, sir.  Here's British Birds, and Catullus, and The Holy War
-- a bargain, every one of them.  With five volumes you could just
fill that gap on that second shelf.  It looks untidy, does it not,
sir?"
     I moved my head to look at the cabinet behind me.  When I turned
again, Sherlock Holmes was standing smiling at me across my study
table.  I rose to my feet, stared at him for some seconds in utter
amazement, and then it appears that I must have fainted for the first
and the last time in my life.  Certainly a gray mist swirled before my
eyes, and when it cleared I found my collar-ends undone and the
tingling after-taste of brandy upon my lips.  Holmes was bending over
my chair, his flask in his hand.
     "My dear Watson," said the well-remembered voice, "I owe you a
thousand apologies.  I had no idea that you would be so affected."
     I gripped him by the arms.
     "Holmes!" I cried.  "Is it really you?  Can it indeed be that you
are alive?  Is it possible that you succeeded in climbing out of that
awful abyss?"
     "Wait a moment," said he.  "Are you sure that you are really fit
to discuss things?  I have given you a serious shock by my
unnecessarily dramatic reappearance."
     "I am all right, but indeed, Holmes, I can hardly believe my
eyes.  Good heavens! to think that you -- you of all men -- should be
standing in my study."  Again I gripped him by the sleeve, and felt
the thin, sinewy arm beneath it.  "Well, you're not a spirit, anyhow,"
said I.  "My dear chap, I'm overjoyed to see you.  Sit down, and tell
me how you came alive out of that dreadful chasm."
     He sat opposite to me, and lit a cigarette in his old, nonchalant
manner.  He was dressed in the seedy frockcoat of the book merchant,
but the rest of that individual lay in a pile of white hair and old
books upon the table.  Holmes looked even thinner and keener than of
old, but there was a dead-white tinge in his aquiline face which told
me that his life recently had not been a healthy one.
     "I am glad to stretch myself, Watson," said he.  "It is no joke
when a tall man has to take a foot off his stature for several hours
on end.  Now, my dear fellow, in the matter of these explanations, we
have, if I may ask for your cooperation, a hard and dangerous night's
work in front of us.  Perhaps it would be better if I gave you an
account of the whole situation when that work is finished."
     "I am full of curiosity.  I should much prefer to hear now."
     "You'll come with me to-night?"
     "When you like and where you like."
     "This is, indeed, like the old days.  We shall have time for a
mouthful of dinner before we need go.  Well, then, about that chasm. 
I had no serious difficulty in getting out of it, for the very simple
reason that I never was in it."
     "You never were in it?"
     "No, Watson, I never was in it.  My note to you was absolutely
genuine.  I had little doubt that I had come to the end of my career
when I perceived the somewhat sinister figure of the late Professor
Moriarty standing upon the narrow pathway which led to safety.  I read
an inexorable purpose in his gray eyes.  I exchanged some remarks with
him, therefore, and obtained his courteous permission to write the
short note which you afterwards received.  I left it with my
cigarette-box and my stick, and I walked along the pathway, Moriarty
still at my heels.  When I reached the end I stood at bay.  He drew no
weapon, but he rushed at me and threw his long arms around me.  He
knew that his own game was up, and was only anxious to revenge himself
upon me.  We tottered together upon the brink of the fall.  I have
some knowledge, however, of baritsu, or the Japanese system of
wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me.  I slipped
through his grip, and he with a horrible scream kicked madly for a few
seconds, and clawed the air with both his hands.  But for all his
efforts he could not get his balance, and over he went.  With my face
over the brink, I saw him fall for a long way.  Then he struck a rock,
bounded off, and splashed into the water."
     I listened with amazement to this explanation, which Holmes
delivered between the puffs of his cigarette.
     "But the tracks!" I cried.  "I saw, with my own eyes, that two
went down the path and none returned.
     "It came about in this way.  The instant that the Professor had
disappeared, it struck me what a really extraordinarily lucky chance
Fate had placed in my way.  I knew that Moriarty was not the only man
who had sworn my death.  There were at least three others whose desire
for vengeance upon me would only be increased by the death of their
leader.  They were all most dangerous men.  One or other would
certainly get me.  On the other hand, if all the world was convinced
that I was dead they would take liberties, these men, they would soon
lay themselves open, and sooner or later I could destroy them.  Then
it would be time for me to announce that I was still in the land of
the living.  So rapidly does the brain act that I believe I had
thought this all out before Professor Moriarty had reached the bottom
of the Reichenbach Fall.
     "I stood up and examined the rocky wall behind me.  In your
picturesque account of the matter, which I read with great interest
some months later, you assert that the wall was sheer.  That was not
literally true.  A few small footholds presented themselves, and there
was some indication of a ledge.  The cliff is so high that to climb it
all was an obvious impossibility, and it was equally impossible to
make my way along the wet path without leaving some tracks.  I might,
it is true, have reversed my boots, as I have done on similar
occasions, but the sight of three sets of tracks in one direction
would certainly have suggested a deception.  On the whole, then, it
was best that I should risk the climb.  It was not a pleasant
business, Watson.  The fall roared beneath me.  I am not a fanciful
person, but I give you my word that I seemed to hear Moriarty's voice
screaming at me out of the abyss.  A mistake would have been fatal. 
More than once, as tufts of grass came out in my hand or my foot
slipped in the wet notches of the rock, I thought that I was gone. 
But I struggled upward, and at last I reached a ledge several feet
deep and covered with soft green moss, where I could lie unseen, in
the most perfect comfort.  There I was stretched, when you, my dear
Watson, and all your following were investigating in the most
sympathetic and inefficient manner the circumstances of my death.
     "At last, when you had all formed your inevitable and totally
erroneous conclusions, you departed for the hotel, and I was left
alone.  I had imagined that I had reached the end of my adventures,
but a very unexpected occurrence showed me that there were surprises
still in store for me.  A huge rock, falling from above, boomed past
me, struck the path, and bounded over into the chasm.  For an instant
I thought that it was an accident, but a moment later, looking up, I
saw a man's head against the darkening sky, and another stone struck
the very ledge upon which I was stretched, within a foot of my head. 
Of course, the meaning of this was obvious.  Moriarty had not been
alone.  A confederate -- and even that one glance had told me how
dangerous a man that confederate was -- had kept guard while the
Professor had attacked me.  From a distance, unseen by me, he had been
a witness of his friend's death and of my escape.  He had waited, and
then making his way round to the top of the cliff, he had endeavoured
to succeed where his comrade had failed.
     "I did not take long to think about it, Watson.  Again I saw that
grim face look over the cliff, and I knew that it was the precursor of
another stone.  I scrambled down on to the path.  I don't think I
could have done it in cold blood.  It was a hundred times more
difficult than getting up.  But I had no time to think of the danger,
for another stone sang past me as I hung by my hands from the edge of
the ledge.  Halfway down I slipped, but, by the blessing of God, I
landed, torn and bleeding, upon the path.  I took to my heels, did ten
miles over the mountains in the darkness, and a week later I found
myself in Florence, with the certainty that no one in the world knew
what had become of me.
     "I had only one confidant -- my brother Mycroft.  I owe you many
apologies, my dear Watson, but it was all-important that it should be
thought I was dead, and it is quite certain that you would not have
written so convincing an account of my unhappy end had you not
yourself thought that it was true.  Several times during the last
three years I have taken up my pen to write to you, but always I
feared lest your affectionate regard for me should tempt you to some
indiscretion which would betray my secret.  For that reason I turned
away from you this evening when you upset my books, for I was in
danger at the time, and any show of surprise and emotion upon your
part might have drawn attention to my identity and led to the most
deplorable and irreparable results.  As to Mycroft, I had to confide
in him in order to obtain the money which I needed.  The course of
events in London did not run so well as I had hoped, for the trial of
the Moriarty gang left two of its most dangerous members, my own most
vindictive enemies, at liberty.  I travelled for two years in Tibet,
therefore, and amused myself by visiting Lhassa, and spending some
days with the head lama.  You may have read of the remarkable
explorations of a Norwegian named Sigerson, but I am sure that it
never occurred to you that you were receiving news of your friend.  I
then passed through Persia, looked in at Mecca, and paid a short but
interesting visit to the Khalifa at Khartoum, the results of which I
have communicated to the Foreign Office.  Returning to France, I spent
some months in a research into the coal-tar derivatives, which I
conducted in a laboratory at Montpellier, in the south of France. 
Having concluded this to my satisfaction and learning that only one of
my enemies was now left in London, I was about to return when my
movements were hastened by the news of this very remarkable Park Lane
Mystery, which not only appealed to me by its own merits, but which
seemed to offer some most peculiar personal opportunities.  I came
over at once to London, called in my own person at Baker Street, threw
Mrs. Hudson into violent hysterics, and found that Mycroft had
preserved my rooms and my papers exactly as they had always been.  So
it was, my dear Watson, that at two o'clock to-day I found myself in
my old armchair in my own old room, and only wishing that I could have
seen my old friend Watson in the other chair which he has so often
adorned."
     Such was the remarkable narrative to which I listened on that
April evening -- a narrative which would have been utterly incredible
to me had it not been confirmed by the actual sight of the tall, spare
figure and the keen, eager face, which I had never thought to see
again.  In some manner he had learned of my own sad bereavement, and
his sympathy was shown in his manner rather than in his words.  "Work
is the best antidote to sorrow, my dear Watson," said he; "and I have
a piece of work for us both to-night which, if we can bring it to a
successful conclusion, will in itself justify a man's life on this
planet."  In vain I begged him to tell me more.  "You will hear and
see enough before morning," he answered.  "We have three years of the
past to discuss.  Let that suffice until half-past nine, when we start
upon the notable adventure of the empty house."
     It was indeed like old times when, at that hour, I found myself
seated beside him in a hansom, my revolver in my pocket, and the
thrill of adventure in my heart.  Holmes was cold and stern and
silent.  As the gleam of the street-lamps flashed upon his austere
features, I saw that his brows were drawn down in thought and his thin
lips compressed.  I knew not what wild beast we were about to hunt
down in the dark jungle of criminal London, but I was well assured,
from the bearing of this master huntsman, that the adventure was a
most grave one -- while the sardonic smile which occasionally broke
through his ascetic gloom boded little good for the object of our
quest.
     I had imagined that we were bound for Baker Street, but Holmes
stopped the cab at the corner of Cavendish Square.  I observed that as
he stepped out he gave a most searching glance to right and left, and
at every subsequent street corner he took the utmost pains to assure
that he was not followed.  Our route was certainly a singular one. 
Holmes's knowledge of the byways of London was extraordinary, and on
this occasion he passed rapidly and with an assured step through a
network of mews and stables, the very existence of which I had never
known.  We emerged at last into a small road, lined with old, gloomy
houses, which led us into Manchester Street, and so to Blandford
Street.  Here he turned swiftly down a narrow passage, passed through
a wooden gate into a deserted yard, and then opened with a key the
back door of a house.  We entered together, and he closed it behind
us.
     The place was pitch dark, but it was evident to me that it was an
empty house.  Our feet creaked and crackled over the bare planking,
and my outstretched hand touched a wall from which the paper was
hanging in ribbons.  Holmes's cold, thin fingers closed round my wrist
and led me forward down a long hall, until I dimly saw the murky
fanlight over the door.  Here Holmes turned suddenly to the right, and
we found ourselves in a large, square, empty room, heavily shadowed in
the corners, but faintly lit in the centre from the lights of the
street beyond.  There was no lamp near, and the window was thick with
dust, so that we could only just discern each other's figures within. 
My companion put his hand upon my shoulder and his lips close to my
ear.
     "Do you know where we are?" he whispered.
     "Surely that is Baker Street," I answered, staring through the
dim window.
     "Exactly.  We are in Camden House, which stands opposite to our
own old quarters."
     "But why are we here?"
     "Because it commands so excellent a view of that picturesque
pile.  Might I trouble you, my dear Watson, to draw a little nearer to
the window, taking every precaution not to show yourself, and then to
look up at our old rooms -- the starting-point of so many of your
little fairy-tales?  We will see if my three years of absence have
entirely taken away my power to surprise you."
     I crept forward and looked across at the familiar window.  As my
eyes fell upon it, I gave a gasp and a cry of amazement.  The blind
was down, and a strong light was burning in the room.  The shadow of a
man who was seated in a chair within was thrown in hard, black outline
upon the luminous screen of the window.  There was no mistaking the
poise of the head, the squareness of the shoulders, the sharpness of
the features.  The face was turned half-round, and the effect was that
of one of those black silhouettes which our grandparents loved to
frame.  It was a perfect reproduction of Holmes.  So amazed was I that
I threw out my hand to make sure that the man himself was standing
beside me.  He was quivering with silent laughter.
     "Well?" said he.
     "Good heavens!" I cried.  "It is marvellous."
     "I trust that age doth not wither nor custom stale my infinite
variety," said he, and I recognized in his voice the joy and pride
which the artist takes in his own creation.  "It really is rather like
me, is it not?"
     "I should be prepared to swear that it was you."
     "The credit of the execution is due to Monsieur Oscar Meunier, of
Grenoble, who spent some days in doing the moulding.  It is a bust in
wax.  The rest I arranged myself during my visit to Baker Street this
afternoon."
     "But why?"
     "Because, my dear Watson, I had the strongest possible reason for
wishing certain people to think that I was there when I was really
elsewhere."
     "And you thought the rooms were watched?"
     "I knew that they were watched."
     "By whom?"
     "By my old enemies, Watson.  By the charming society whose leader
lies in the Reichenbach Fall.  You must remember that they knew, and
only they knew, that I was still alive.  Sooner or later they believed
that I should come back to my rooms.  They watched them continuously,
and this morning they saw me arrive."
     "How do you know?"
     "Because I recognized their sentinel when I glanced out of my
window.  He is a harmless enough fellow, Parker by name, a garroter by
trade, and a remarkable performer upon the jew's-harp.  I cared
nothing for him.  But I cared a great deal for the much more
formidable person who was behind him, the bosom friend of Moriarty,
the man who dropped the rocks over the cliff, the most cunning and
dangerous criminal in London.  That is the man who is after me
to-night, Watson, and that is the man who is quite unaware that we are
after him."
     My friend's plans were gradually revealing themselves.  From this
convenient retreat, the watchers were being watched and the trackers
tracked.  That angular shadow up yonder was the bait, and we were the
hunters.  In silence we stood together in the darkness and watched the
hurrying figures who passed and repassed in front of us.  Holmes was
silent and motionless; but I could tell that he was keenly alert, and
that his eyes were fixed intently upon the stream of passers-by.  It
was a bleak and boisterous night, and the wind whistled shrilly down
the long street.  Many people were moving to and fro, most of them
muffled in their coats and cravats.  Once or twice it seemed to me
that I had seen the same figure before, and I especially noticed two
men who appeared to be sheltering themselves from the wind in the
doorway of a house some distance up the street.  I tried to draw my
companion's attention to them; but he gave a little ejaculation of
impatience, and continued to stare into the street.  More than once he
fidgeted with his feet and tapped rapidly with his fingers upon the
wall.  It was evident to me that he was becoming uneasy, and that his
plans were not working out altogether as he had hoped.  At last, as
midnight approached and the street gradually cleared, he paced up and
down the room in uncontrollable agitation.  I was about to make some
remark to him, when I raised my eyes to the lighted window, and again
experienced almost as great a surprise as before.  I clutched Holmes's
arm, and pointed upward.
     "The shadow has moved!" I cried.
     It was indeed no longer the profile, but the back, which was
turned towards us.
     Three years had certainly not smoothed the asperities of his
temper or his impatience with a less active intelligence than his
own.
     "Of course it has moved," said he.  "Am I such a farcical
bungler, Watson, that I should erect an obvious dummy, and expect that
some of the sharpest men in Europe would be deceived by it?  We have
been in this room two hours, and Mrs. Hudson has made some change in
that figure eight times, or once in every quarter of an hour.  She
works it from the front, so that her shadow may never be seen.  Ah!" 
He drew in his breath with a shrill, excited intake.  In the dim light
I saw his head thrown forward, his whole attitude rigid with
attention.  Outside the street was absolutely deserted.  Those two men
might still be crouching in the doorway, but I could no longer see
them.  All was still and dark, save only that brilliant yellow screen
in front of us with the black figure outlined upon its centre.  Again
in the utter silence I heard that thin, sibilant note which spoke of
intense suppressed excitement.  An instant later he pulled me back
into the blackest corner of the room, and I felt his warning hand upon
my lips.  The fingers which clutched me were quivering.  Never had I
known my friend more moved, and yet the dark street still stretched
lonely and motionless before us.
     But suddenly I was aware of that which his keener senses had
already distinguished.  A low, stealthy sound came to my ears, not
from the direction of Baker Street, but from the back of the very
house in which we lay concealed.  A door opened and shut.  An instant
later steps crept down the passage -- steps which were meant to be
silent, but which reverberated harshly through the empty house. 
Holmes crouched back against the wall, and I did the same, my hand
closing upon the handle of my revolver.  Peering through the gloom, I
saw the vague outline of a man, a shade blacker than the blackness of
the open door.  He stood for an instant, and then he crept forward,
crouching, menacing, into the room.  He was within three yards of us,
this sinister figure, and I had braced myself to meet his spring,
before I realized that he had no idea of our presence.  He passed
close beside us, stole over to the window, and very softly and
noiselessly raised it for half a foot.  As he sank to the level of
this opening, the light of the street, no longer dimmed by the dusty
glass, fell full upon his face.  The man seemed to be beside himself
with excitement.  His two eyes shone like stars, and his features were
working convulsively.  He was an elderly man, with a thin, projecting
nose, a high, bald forehead, and a huge grizzled moustache.  An opera
hat was pushed to the back of his head, and an evening dress
shirt-front gleamed out through his open overcoat.  His face was gaunt
and swarthy, scored with deep, savage lines.  In his hand he carried
what appeared to be a stick, but as he laid it down upon the floor it
gave a metallic clang.  Then from the pocket of his overcoat he drew a
bulky object, and he busied himself in some task which ended with a
loud, sharp click, as if a spring or bolt had fallen into its place. 
Still kneeling upon the floor he bent forward and threw all his weight
and strength upon some lever, with the result that there came a long,
whirling, grinding noise, ending once more in a powerful click.  He
straightened himself then, and I saw that what he held in his hand was
a sort of gun, with a curiously misshapen butt.  He opened it at the
breech, put something in, and snapped the breech-lock.  Then,
crouching down, he rested the end of the barrel upon the ledge of the
open window, and I saw his long moustache droop over the stock and his
eye gleam as it peered along the sights.  I heard a little sigh of
satisfaction as he cuddled the butt into his shoulder, and saw that
amazing target, the black man on the yellow ground, standing clear at
the end of his foresight.  For an instant he was rigid and motionless.
Then his finger tightened on the trigger.  There was a strange, loud
whiz and a long, silvery tinkle of broken glass.  At that instant
Holmes sprang like a tiger on to the marksman's back, and hurled him
flat upon his face.  He was up again in a moment, and with convulsive
strength he seized Holmes by the throat, but I struck him on the head
with the butt of my revolver, and he dropped again upon the floor.  I
fell upon him, and as I held him my comrade blew a shrill call upon a
whistle.  There was the clatter of running feet upon the pavement, and
two policemen in uniform, with one plain-clothes detective, rushed
through the front entrance and into the room.
     "That you, Lestrade?" said Holmes.
     "Yes, Mr. Holmes.  I took the job myself.  It's good to see you
back in London, sir."
     "I think you want a little unofficial help.  Three undetected
murders in one year won't do, Lestrade.  But you handled the Molesey
Mystery with less than your usual -- that's to say, you handled it
fairly well."
     We had all risen to our feet, our prisoner breathing hard, with a
stalwart constable on each side of him.  Already a few loiterers had
begun to collect in the street.  Holmes stepped up to the window,
closed it, and dropped the blinds.  Lestrade had produced two candles,
and the policemen had uncovered their lanterns.  I was able at last to
have a good look at our prisoner.
     It was a tremendously virile and yet sinister face which was
turned towards us.  With the brow of a philosopher above and the jaw
of a sensualist below, the man must have started with great capacities
for good or for evil.  But one could not look upon his cruel blue
eyes, with their drooping, cynical lids, or upon the fierce,
aggressive nose and the threatening, deep-lined brow, without reading
Nature's plainest danger-signals.  He took no heed of any of us, but
his eyes were fixed upon Holmes's face with an expression in which
hatred and amazement were equally blended.  "You fiend!" he kept on
muttering.  "You clever, clever fiend!"
     "Ah, Colonel!" said Holmes, arranging his rumpled collar. 
"'Journeys end in lovers' meetings,' as the old play says.  I don't
think I have had the pleasure of seeing you since you favoured me with
those attentions as I lay on the ledge above the Reichenbach Fall."
     The colonel still stared at my friend like a man in a trance. 
"You cunning, cunning fiend!" was all that he could say.
     "I have not introduced you yet," said Holmes.  "This, gentlemen,
is Colonel Sebastian Moran, once of Her Majesty's Indian Army, and the
best heavy-game shot that our Eastern Empire has ever produced.  I
believe I am correct, Colonel, in saying that your bag of tigers still
remains unrivalled?"
     The fierce old man said nothing, but still glared at my
companion.  With his savage eyes and bristling moustache he was
wonderfully like a tiger himself.
     "I wonder that my very simple stratagem could deceive so old a
shikari," said Holmes.  "It must be very familiar to you.  Have you
not tethered a young kid under a tree, lain above it with your rifle,
and waited for the bait to bring up your tiger?  This empty house is
my tree, and you are my tiger.  You have possibly had other guns in
reserve in case there should be several tigers, or in the unlikely
supposition of your own aim failing you.  These," he pointed around,
"are my other guns.  The parallel is exact."
     Colonel Moran sprang forward with a snarl of rage, but the
constables dragged him back.  The fury upon his face was terrible to
look at.
     "I confess that you had one small surprise for me," said Holmes. 
"I did not anticipate that you would yourself make use of this empty
house and this convenient front window.  I had imagined you as
operating from the street, where my friend Lestrade and his merry men
were awaiting you.  With that exception, all has gone as I expected."
     Colonel Moran turned to the official detective.
     "You may or may not have just cause for arresting me," said he,
"but at least there can be no reason why I should submit to the gibes
of this person.  If I am in the hands of the law, let things be done
in a legal way."
     "Well, that's reasonable enough," said Lestrade.  "Nothing
further you have to say, Mr. Holmes, before we go?"
     Holmes had picked up the powerful air-gun from the floor, and was
examining its mechanism.
     "An admirable and unique weapon," said he, "noiseless and of
tremendous power: I knew Von Herder, the blind German mechanic, who
constructed it to the order of the late Professor Moriarty.  For years
I have been aware of its existence, though I have never before had the
opportunity of handling it.  I commend it very specially to your
attention, Lestrade, and also the bullets which fit it."
     "You can trust us to look after that, Mr. Holmes," said Lestrade,
as the whole party moved towards the door.  "Anything further to
say?"
     "Only to ask what charge you intend to prefer?"
     "What charge, sir?  Why, of course, the attempted murder of Mr.
Sherlock Holmes."
     "Not so, Lestrade.  I do not propose to appear in the matter at
all.  To you, and to you only, belongs the credit of the remarkable
arrest which you have effected.  Yes, Lestrade, I congratulate you! 
With your usual happy mixture of cunning and audacity, you have got
him."
     "Got him!  Got whom, Mr. Holmes?"
     "The man that the whole force has been seeking in vain -- Colonel
Sebastian Moran, who shot the Honourable Ronald Adair with an
expanding bullet from an air-gun through the open window of the
second-floor front of No. 427 Park Lane, upon the thirtieth of last
month.  That's the charge, Lestrade.  And now, Watson, if you can
endure the draught from a broken window, I think that half an hour in
my study over a cigar may afford you some profitable amusement."

     Our old chambers had been left unchanged through the supervision
of Mycroft Holmes and the immediate care of Mrs. Hudson.  As I entered
I saw, it is true, an unwonted tidiness, but the old landmarks were
all in their place.  There were the chemical corner and the
acid-stained, deal-topped table.  There upon a shelf was the row of
formidable scrap-books and books of reference which many of our
fellow-citizens would have been so glad to burn.  The diagrams, the
violin-case, and the pipe-rack -- even the Persian slipper which
contained the tobacco -- all met my eyes as I glanced round me.  There
were two occupants of the room -- one, Mrs. Hudson, who beamed upon us
both as we entered -- the other, the strange dummy which had played so
important a part in the evening's adventures.  It was a wax-coloured
model of my friend, so admirably done that it was a perfect facsimile.
It stood on a small pedestal table with an old dressing-gown of
Holmes's so draped round it that the illusion from the street was
absolutely perfect.
     "I hope you observed all precautions, Mrs. Hudson?" said Holmes.
     "I went to it on my knees, sir, just as you told me."
     "Excellent.  You carried the thing out very well.  Did you
observe where the bullet went?"
     "Yes, sir.  I'm afraid it has spoilt your beautiful bust, for it
passed right through the head and flattened itself on the wall.  I
picked it up from the carpet.  Here it is!"
     Holmes held it out to me.  "A soft revolver bullet, as you
perceive, Watson.  There's genius in that, for who would expect to
find such a thing fired from an air-gun?  All right, Mrs. Hudson.  I
am much obliged for your assistance.  And now, Watson, let me see you
in your old seat once more, for there are several points which I
should like to discuss with you."
     He had thrown off the seedy frockcoat, and now he was the Holmes
of old in the mouse-coloured dressing-gown which he took from his
effigy.
     "The old shikari's nerves have not lost their steadiness, nor his
eyes their keenness," said he, with a laugh, as he inspected the
shattered forehead of his bust.
     "Plumb in the middle of the back of the head and smack through
the brain.  He was the best shot in India, and I expect that there are
few better in London.  Have you heard the name?"
     "No, I have not."
     "Well, well, such is fame!  But, then, if I remember right, you
had not heard the name of Professor James Moriarty, who had one of the
great brains of the century.  Just give me down my index of
biographies from the shelf."
     He turned over the pages lazily, leaning back in his chair and
blowing great clouds from his cigar.
     "My collection of M's is a fine one," said he.  "Moriarty himself
is enough to make any letter illustrious, and here is Morgan the
poisoner, and Merridew of abominable memory, and Mathews, who knocked
out my left canine in the waiting-room at Charing Cross, and, finally,
here is our friend of to-night."
     He handed over the book, and I read:

   Moran, Sebastian, Colonel.  Unemployed.  Formerly 1st Bangalore
Pioneers.  Born London, 1840.  Son of Sir Augustus Moran, C. B., once
British Minister to Persia.  Educated Eton and Oxford.  Served in
Jowaki Campaign, Afghan Campaign, Charasiab (despatches), Sherpur, and
Cabul.  Author of Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas (1881); Three
Months in the Jungle (1884).  Address: Conduit Street.  Clubs: The
Anglo-Indian, the Tankerville, the Bagatelle Card Club.

     On the margin was written, in Holmes's precise hand:

   The second most dangerous man in London.

     "This is astonishing," said I, as I handed back the volume.  "The
man's career is that of an honourable soldier."
     "It is true," Holmes answered.  "Up to a certain point he did
well.  He was always a man of iron nerve, and the story is still told
in India how he crawled down a drain after a wounded man-eating tiger.
There are some trees, Watson, which grow to a certain height, and then
suddenly develop some unsightly eccentricity.  You will see it often
in humans.  I have a theory that the individual represents in his
development the whole procession of his ancestors, and that such a
sudden turn to good or evil stands for some strong influence which
came into the line of his pedigree.  The person becomes, as it were,
the epitome of the history of his own family."
     "It is surely rather fanciful."
     "Well, I don't insist upon it.  Whatever the cause, Colonel Moran
began to go wrong.  Without any open scandal, he still made India too
hot to hold him.  He retired, came to London, and again acquired an
evil name.  It was at this time that he was sought out by Professor
Moriarty, to whom for a time he was chief of the staff.  Moriarty
supplied him liberally with money, and used him only in one or two
very high-class jobs, which no ordinary criminal could have
undertaken.  You may have some recollection of the death of Mrs.
Stewart, of Lauder, in 1887.  Not?  Well, I am sure Moran was at the
bottom of it, but nothing could be proved.  So cleverly was the
colonel concealed that, even when the Moriarty gang was broken up, we
could not incriminate him.  You remember at that date, when I called
upon you in your rooms, how I put up the shutters for fear of
air-guns?  No doubt you thought me fanciful.  I knew exactly what I
was doing, for I knew of the existence of this remarkable gun, and I
knew also that one of the best shots in the world would be behind it. 
When we were in Switzerland he followed us with Moriarty, and it was
undoubtedly he who gave me that evil five minutes on the Reichenbach
ledge.
     "You may think that I read the papers with some attention during
my sojourn in France, on the look-out for any chance of laying him by
the heels.  So long as he was free in London, my life would really not
have been worth living.  Night and day the shadow would have been over
me, and sooner or later his chance must have come.  What could I do? 
I could not shoot him at sight, or I should myself be in the dock. 
There was no use appealing to a magistrate.  They cannot interfere on
the strength of what would appear to them to be a wild suspicion.  So
I could do nothing.  But I watched the criminal news, knowing that
sooner or later I should get him.  Then came the death of this Ronald
Adair.  My chance had come at last.  Knowing what I did, was it not
certain that Colonel Moran had done it?  He had played cards with the
lad, he had followed him home from the club, he had shot him through
the open window.  There was not a doubt of it.  The bullets alone are
enough to put his head in a noose.  I came over at once.  I was seen
by the sentinel, who would, I knew, direct the colonel's attention to
my presence.  He could not fail to connect my sudden return with his
crime, and to be terribly alarmed.  I was sure that he would make an
attempt to get me out of the way at once, and would bring round his
murderous weapon for that purpose.  I left him an excellent mark in
the window, and, having warned the police that they might be needed --
by the way, Watson, you spotted their presence in that doorway with
unerring accuracy -- I took up what seemed to me to be a judicious
post for observation, never dreaming that he would choose the same
spot for his attack.  Now, my dear Watson, does anything remain for me
to explain?"
     "Yes," said I.  "You have not made it clear what was Colonel
Moran's motive in murdering the Honourable Ronald Adair?"
     "Ah! my dear Watson, there we come into those realms of
conjecture, where the most logical mind may be at fault.  Each may
form his own hypothesis upon the present evidence, and yours is as
likely to be correct as mine."
     "You have formed one, then?"
     "I think that it is not difficult to explain the facts.  It came
out in evidence that Colonel Moran and young Adair had, between them,
won a considerable amount of money.  Now, Moran undoubtedly played
foul -- of that I have long been aware.  I believe that on the day of
the murder Adair had discovered that Moran was cheating.  Very likely
he had spoken to him privately, and had threatened to expose him
unless he voluntarily resigned his membership of the club, and
promised not to play cards again.  It is unlikely that a youngster
like Adair would at once make a hideous scandal by exposing a well
known man so much older than himself.  Probably he acted as I suggest.
The exclusion from his clubs would mean ruin to Moran, who lived by
his ill-gotten card-gains.  He therefore murdered Adair, who at the
time was endeavouring to work out how much money he should himself
return, since he could not profit by his partner's foul play.  He
locked the door lest the ladies should surprise him and insist upon
knowing what he was doing with these names and coins.  Will it pass?"
     "I have no doubt that you have hit upon the truth."
     "It will be verified or disproved at the trial.  Meanwhile, come
what may, Colonel Moran will trouble us no more.  The famous air-gun
of Von Herder will embellish the Scotland Yard Museum, and once again
Mr. Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those
interesting little problems which the complex life of London so
plentifully presents."
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