Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 January 1913 — The ADVENTURE OE THE RED CIRCLE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The ADVENTURE OE THE RED CIRCLE

(Continued.) „ “Well, Mrs. Warren, ~ I cannot see that you have any- particular cause f&r uneasiness, nor do I understand why I, whose time is of some- value, should interfere in the matter. I really have other things to engage me.’’ So spoke Sherlock Holmes, and turned back to the great scrapbook in which he was arranging and indexing some of his recent material. But the landlady had the pertinacity, and also the cunning of her sex. She held her ground firmly. “You arranged an affair for a lodger of mine last year,” she said—“ Mr. Fairdale Hobbs.” "Ah, yes—a simple matter.” “But he would never cease talking of it —your kindness, sir, and the way in which you brought light into the darkness. I remembered his words when I was in doubt and darkness myself. I know you could if you only would." Holmes was accessible upon the side of flattery, and also, to do him justice, upon the “ side of kindliness. The two forces made him lay down his .gum-brush with a sigh of resignation and push back his chair. "Well, well, Mrs. Warren, let us hear about it, then. You don’t object to tobacco, I take it? Thank you, Watson —the matches! .You are uneasy, as I understand, because your new lodger remains in his room and you cannot see him. Why, bless you, Mrs. Warren, if I were your lodger you often would not see me for weeks on end." “No doubt, sir; but this is different. It frightens me, Mr. Holmes. I can’t sleep for fright To hear his quick step moving here and moving there from early morning to late at night, and yet never to catch so much as a glimpse of him—it’s more than I can stand. My husband is as nervous over it as I am, but he is out at his work all day, while I get no rest from it What is he hiding for? What has he done? Except for the girl, I am all alone in the house with him, and it’s more than my nerves can stand." Holmes leaned forward and laid his long, thin fingers upon the wOman’s shoulder. He had an almost hypnotic power of soothing when he wished. The scared look faded from her eyes, and her agitated features smoothed Into their usual commonplace. She sat dbwn in the' chair which he had indicated. "If I take it up I must understand every detail,” said he. “Take time to consider. The smallest point may be the most essential. You say that the man came ten days ago, and paid you for a fortnight's board and lodging?” "He asked my terms, sir. I said fifty shillings a week. There is a small sitting-room and bedroom, and all complete, at the top of the house.” “Well?” “He said, ‘l’ll pay you five pounds a week if I can have it on my own terms.* I’m a poor woman, sir, and Mr. Warren earns little, and the money meant much to me. He took out a ten-pound note, and he held it out to me then and there. ‘You can have the same every fortnight for a long time to come if you keep the terms,’ he said. ‘lf not, I’ll have no more to do with you.’ " “What were the terms?” "Well, sir, they were that he was ■to have a key of the house. That was all right. Lodgers often have them. Also, that he was to-ha./eft entirely to himself, and never, upon any excuse, to be disturbed.” "Nothing very wonderful in that, surely?’’ "Not tn reason, sir. But this is out of all reason. He has been there for ten days, and neither Mr. Warren nor I nor tbe girl has onoe set eyes upon him. We can hear that quick step of bls pacing up and down, up and down, night, morning and noon; but except on that first night he has never once gone out of tbe house.” “Oh, he went out the first night, did her "Yes, sir, and returned very late—after we were all in bed. He told me after be had taken tbe rooms that be "would do so, and asked me not to bar tbe door. I heard him come up the stair after midnight.” “But bls meais?” "It was his particular direction that we should always, when he rang, leave bis meal upon a chair outside hie door. Then be rings again when be has finished, and we take it down from the same chair. If be wants anything else be print* It on • slip of paper and leaves it” "Prints Itr "Yea, sir; prints It In pencil Just

the word, nothing more. Here’s one I*brought to show you—SOAP. Here’s another—MATCH. This is one he left the first morning—DAlLY GAZETTE. I leave that paper with his breakfast every morning.” “Dear me, Watson,” said Holmes, storing- with great curiosity at the slips of foolscap which the landlady had handed to him, “this is certainly a little unusual. Seclusion I can understand; by why print? Printing i§ a clumsy process. Why not" write? What would If suggest, Watson?" "That he desired to conceal his hindwriting.”

“But why? What can R matter tb him that his landlady should have a word of his writing;? Still, it may be as you say. Then, again, why such laconic messages?" L ’ —“lcannotiinagine.” , “It opens a pleasing field for intelligent speculation. The words ape written with a broad-pointed, violet-tinted pencil of a not unusual pattern. You will observe that’ the paper is torn away at the side here after the printing was done, so that the ‘S’ df SOAP’ is partly gone. Suggestive, Watson, is it not?” “Of caution?"

“Exactly. There wras evidently some mark, some thumb print, something which might give a clew to the person’s identity. Now, Mrs. Warren, you say that the man was of middle size, dark and bearded. What age would he be?” > “Youngish—not over thirty." "Well, can you give me no further indications?” “He spoke good English, sir, and yet I thought he was a foreigner by his accent.” “And he was well dtessed?" “Very smartly dressed, sir—quite the gentleman. Dark clothes —nothing you would note.” “He gave no name?” “No, sir.” "And has had no letters or callers?” “None." "But surely you or the girl enter his room of a morning?" “No, sir; he looks after himself entirely.” "Dear me! that is certainly remarkable. What about his luggage?” “He had one big brown bag with him —nothing else.” \ "Well, we don’t seem to have much material to help us. Do you say nothing has come out of that room—absolutely nothing?” The landlady drew an envelope from her bag; from it she shook out two burned matches and a cigaretteend upon the table. “They were on his tray this morning. I brought them because I had heard that you can read great things out of small ones." Holmes shrugged his shoulders. “There is nothing here,” said he. "The matches have, of course, been used to light cigarettes. That is obvious from the shortness of the burnt end. Half the match is consumed in lighting a pipe or a cigar. But, dear

me! this cigarette stub is certainly remarkable. The gentleman was bearded and mustached, you say?” “Yes, sir.” “I don’t understand that. I should say that only a clean-shaven man could have smoked this. Why, Wat-

sou, even your modest mustache would have been singed.” “A holder?” I suggested. "No., no; (he end Is matted. I sup-, pose there could not be two people In your rooms, Mrs. Warren?" “No, sir, He eats so little that I often wonder it can keep Hfe in one.” "Well, I think we must walt fsr a little more material. After all, you have nothing to complain of. You have received your rent, and he is not a troublesome lodger, through he is certainly an unusual one. _He pays you well, and if he chooses to lie concealed it is no direct'-business. of yours. We have no an intrusion upon his privacy until we have some reason to think that there is a guilty reason for it. I’ve taken up the matter, and I won’t lose sight of It Report to me if anything fresh occurs, end rely upon iny assistance if it should be needed. “There are certainly some points of interest in this case, Watson,” he remarked, when the landlady had left us. “It may, of course, be trivialindividual eccentricity; or it may be very much deeper than appears on the surface. The first thing that strikes one is the obvious possibility that the person now in the rooms may be tlrely different from the one who engaged them.” “Why should you think so?” “Well, apart from this cigaretteend, was it not suggestive that the only time the lodger went out was immediately after his taking the rooms? He carhe back—or someone came back—when all witnesses were out of the way. -We have no proof that the person who came back was the persoq who went out. Then, again, the man who took the rooms spoke English well. This other, however, prints ‘match’ when it should have been ‘matches.’, I can Imagine that- the. word was takep out of a dictionary, which would give the noun but not the plural. The laconic style may be to conceal the absence of knowledge of English. Yes, Watson, there are good reasons to suspect that there has been of lodgers.” “But for what possible end?" "Ah! there lies our problem. There is one rather obvious line of investigation." He took down the great book in which, day by day, he filed the agony columns of the various London journals. “Dear me!” said he, turning over the pages, “what a chorus of groans, cries and bleatings! What a rag-bag of singular happenings! But surely the most valuable hunting-ground that ever was given to a student of the unusual! This person is alone, and cannot be approached by letter without a breach of that absolute secrecy which is desired. How is any* news or any message to reach him from without? Obviously by advertisement through a newspaper. There seems no other way, and fortunately we need concern ourselves with the one paper only. Here are the Daily Gazette extracts of the last fortnight. ‘Lady with a black boa at Prince’s Skating club’ —that we may pass. ‘Surely Jimmy will not break his mother’s heart’—that appears to be irrelevant. ‘lf the lady who fainted in the Brixton bus’—she does not interest me. ‘Every day my heart longs— ’ Bleat, Watson —unmitigated bleat! Ah! this is a little more possible. Listen to this: ‘Be patient. Will find some sure means of communication. —Meanwhile, this column. —G.’ That is two days after Warren’s lodger arrived* It sounds plausible, does it not? The mysterious one could understand English, even if he could not print it. Let us see if we can pictf up the trace again. Yes, here we arethree days later. ‘Am making successful arrangements. Patience 'and prudence. The clouds will pass.—G.’ Nothing for a week after that. Then comes something much more definite: .‘The path is clearing. If I find chance signal message remember code agreed —one A, two B, and so on. You will hear soon.—G.‘ That was in yesterday’s paper, and there is nothing in today’s. It’s all very appropriate to Mrs. Warren’s lodger. If we wait a little, Watson, I don’t doubt that the affair will grow more Intelligible.” So It proved; for in the morning I found my friend standing on the hearthrug with his back to the fire, and a smile of complete satisfaction upon his face. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

"There Was Evidently Some Mark, Some Thumb Print”