Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 October 1894 — Page 6

A STUDY IN SCARLET.

PARTI. • " " , ■ '■ (Being * reprint from the reminiscences of-JomrH; Watspjt, M. P., late of the Anny -Medica' Department.] • ~

■“There’s a half-sovereign for you,” my companion Said, standing up and taking his hat. “I am afraid, Rance, that you will never rise in the force. That head of yours should be for use as well as ornament. You might have gained your sergeant’s stripes i last night. The man whom you held I in your hands is the man who holds the clue of this mystery, and whom we are seeking. There is no use of arguing. about it now; I tell you that tt isso, Come along, doctor.’* We started off for the cab ’together, leaving our informantincredulous, but obviously uncomfortable. “The blundering fool!" Holmes . said, bitterly, as we drove back to I our lodgings. “Just to think of his ■ having such an incomparable bit of I good luck, and not taking ad vantage I of it.” “I am rather in the dark still. ~Ti| , is true that the description of this' man tallies with your idea of the I second party in this mystery. But I why’ should he come back to the house after leaving it? This is not the way of criminals.” “The ring, man, the ring; that was what he came back for. If we have no other wav of catching him we can always bait our line with the ring. I shall have him, doctor —I’ll lay you two to one that I have him. I must thank you for it all. I might not have gone but for you, and so have missed the finest study I ever came across; a study in scarlet, eh? Why shouldn’t we use a little art —jargon?—Therms the scarlet thread of murder running through the colorless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it. and expose every inch of it. And now for lunch, and then for Norman Neruda. Her attack and her bowing are splendid. What’s that little thing of Chopin’s she plays so magnificently: Tra-ia-la-lira-lira-lay.” Leaning back in the cab, this amateur blood-hound caroled away like a lark, while I meditated upon the many-sidedness of the human mind.

CHAPTER V. OUR ADVERTISEMENT BRINGS A VIS- . ITOR. Our morning’s exertions had been too much for ray weak health, and I iwas tired 01H in the afternoon. After Holmes’s departure for the concert I lay down upon the sofa and ■endeavored to get a couple of hours’ sleep. It was a useless attempt. My mind had been too much excited by all that had occurred, and the strangest fancies and surmises prowded into it. Every time that I closed my eyes I saw before me the distorted, baboon-like countenance of the murdered man. So ■sinister was the impression which that face produced upon me that I found it difficult to feel anything but gratitude for him who had removed its owner from the world. If ever human features bespoke vice of the most maglignant type, they were certainly those of Enoch J. Drebber, of Cleveland. Still, I recognized that, justice must be done, and that the depravity of the victim was no condonement in the eyes of the law. The more I thought of it the more extraordinary did ray companion’s hypothesis, that the man had been poisoned, appear. I remembered now he had sniffed his lips, and had no doubt that he had detected something which had given rise to the idea. Then, again, if not poison, what had caused the man’s death, since there was neither wound nor marks of strangulation? But, on the other hand, whose bipod was that which lay so thickly upon the ioor? There were no signs of. a Struggle, nor had the victim any weapon with which he might have wounded an antagonist. As long as all these questions were unsolved, I felt that sleep would be no easy matter, either for Holmes or myself. His quiet, self-confident manner convinced me that he had already formed a theory which explained all the facts, though what it was I could not for an instant conjecture. He was very late in returning—so late that I knew that the concert could not have detained him all the time. Dinner was on the table before he appeared. “It was magnificent,” he said, as he took his seat. “Do you remem- ; ber what Darwin says about music? He claims that the,power of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly j influenced by it. There are vague.' memories in our souls of thosb misty centuries when the world was in its childhood.” A ; “That’s rather a broad idea," I| remarked. “One’s ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature,” he answered. “What’s the matter? You’re not looking quite yourself. This Brixton Road affair has upset you.” “To tell the truth, it has,” I said. •‘I ought to be more case-hardened after my Afghan experiences. I saw my own comrades hacked to pieces at Malwand without teeing my. aerve.” I

BY A. CONAN DOYLE.

CHAPTER IV—Continued.

“1 can understand. There is a mystery about this which stimulates the imagination; where there is no imagination there is no horror. Have you seen the evening paper?” “No.” “It gives a fairly good account of the affair. It does not mention the fact that when the man was raised up a woman’s wedding ring fell upon the floor. It is just as well it does not.” “Why?” “ “Look at this advertisement,” he answered. “I had one sent to every paper this morning immediately after the affair." He threw the paper across to me, and I glanced at the place indicated. It was the first announcement in the “Found” column. “In Brixton Road,” it ran, “a plain gold wedding ring, found in the roadway between the White Hart Tavern and Holland Grove. Apply Dr. Watson, 221 b Baker Street, between eight and nine this evening.” “Excuse my using your name,” he said. “If 1 used my own some one of these dunderheads would recognize it, and want to meddle in the affair.” “That is all right,” I answered. “But supposing any one applies, I have no ring.” “Oh,yes, you have,” said he, handing me one. “This will do very well. It is almost a sac simile." “And who do you expect will answer this advertisement?”. “Why, the man in the brown coat —our florid friend with the square toes. If he does not come himself he will send an accomplice.” “Would he not consider it as too dangerous?” .: all. If my view of the .1 case is correct, and I have every reason to believe that it is, this man would rather risk anything than lose the ring. According to my notion he dropped it while stooping over Drebber’s body, and did not miss it at the time. After leaving the house he discovered his loss, and hurried back, but found the police already in possession, owing to his : own folly in leaving the candle burning. He bad to pretend to be drunk in order to allay the suspicions which might have been aroused by his appearance at the gate. Now put yourself in that man’s place. On thinking the matter over, it must have occurred to him that it was possible that he had lost the ring in the road after leaving the house. What would he do then? He would look out for the evening papers, in the hope of seeing it among the articles found. His eye, of course, would light upon this. He would be overjoyed. Why should he fear a trap? There would be no reason in his eyes why the finding of the ring should be connected with the murder. He would come. He will come. You shall see him within an hour.” “And then?” I asked. “Oh. you can leave me to deal with him then. Have you any arms?” ___ „ 1 j “I have my old service revolver and a few cartridges." “ You had better clean it and load it. He will be a desperate man, and though I shall take him unawares, it is well to be ready for anything.” I went to my bedroom and followed his advice. When I returned with the pistol the table had been cleared and Holmes was engaged in bis favorite occupation of scraping upon his violin. “The plot thickens,” he said, as I entered. “I have just had an answer to my American telegram. My view of the case is the correct one.” “And that is?” I asked eagerly. “My fiddle would be the better for new strings,” he remarked. “Put your pistol in your pocket. When the fellow comes, speak to him in an ordinary way. Leave the rest to me. Don’t frighten him by looking at him too hard. n “It is eight o’clock now,” I said, glancing at my watch. “Yes. He will probably be here in a few minutes. Open the door slightly. That will do. Now put the key on the inside. Thank you. This is a queer old book I picked up ata stall, yesterday —‘De Jure inter Gentes’ —Published in Latin at Liege in the Lowlands, in 1642. Charles’s head was still firm on his shoulders when this little brownbacked volume was struck off.”® “Who is the printer?” ....... “Philippe de Croy, whoever he may have been. On the fly leaf, in very faded ink, is written ‘Ex libris Guiliolmi Whyte.’./I wonder who William Whyte was? Some pragmatical seventeenth century lawyer, I suppose. His writing has a legal twist about it. Here comes our man, I think.” As he spoke there was a sharp ring at the bell. Sherlock Holmes* rose softly and moved his chair in the direction of the door. We heard the servant pass along the hall, and the sharp click of the latch as she opened it. “Does Dr. Watson live here?” askad a clear but rather harsh voice. We could not hear the servant’s reply, but the door closed and soma one began to ascend the stairs. The

footfall was an uncertain and shuffling one. A look of surprise passed oier the face Of my companion as he listened to it. It came slowly along the passage, and there was a feeble tap at the door. “Come in 1” I cried. At my summons, instead of the man of violence whom we expected, a very old and wrinkled woman hobbled into the apartment. She appeared to be dazzled by the sudden blaze of light, and; after dropping a curtsey, she stood blinking at us with her bleared eyes and fumbling in her pocket with her nervous, shaky fingers,: I glanced at my companion, and his face had assumed such a disconsolate expression that it was all I could do to keep my countenance. The old crone drew out an evening paper, and pointed at our advertisement. “It’s this as has brought me, good gentleman,” she said, dropping another curtsey; “a gold wedding ring in the Brixton Road. It belongs to my girl, Sally, as was married only this time twelvemonth, which her husband is a steward aboard a Union boat, and what he’d say if he come ’ome and found her without her ring is more than I can think, he being short enough at the best o’ times, but more especially when he has the drink. If it please you, she went to the circus last night along with— ’’ “Is that her ring?” I asked. “The Lord be thanked!” cried the old woman. “Sally will be a glad woman this night. That’s the ring.” “And what may your address be?” I inquired, taking up a pencil. “13 Duncan street,. Houndsditch. A weary way from here.” “The Brixton Road does not lie between any circus and Houndsditch,” said Sherlock Holmes, lyThe old woman faced round and looked keenly at him from her little red-rimmed eyes. “The gentleman asked me for my address,” she said. “Sally lives in lodgings at 3 Mayfield Place, Peckham.” . “And your name is—” “Mv name is Sawyer—hers is Dennis, which Tom Dennis married her —and a smart, clean lad, too, as long as he's at sea, and no steward in the country more thought of; but when on shore, what with the women and what with liauor-shops—” “Here is your ring. Mrs. Sawyer," I interrupted, in obedience to a sign from my companion; “it clearly belongs to your daughter, and I am glad to be able to restore it to the rightful owner.”

With manymumbled blessings and protestations of gratitude, the old crone packed it away in her pocket, and shuffled off down the stairs. Sherlock Holmes sprang to his feet the moment she was gone and rushed into his room. He returned in a few seconds enveloped in an ulster and a cravat. “I’llfollow her,” he said,hurriedly; “she must be an accomplice, and will lead me to him. Wait up for me.” The hall door had hardly slammed behind our visitor before Holmes, had descended the stair. Looking through the window, I could see her walking feeblv along the other side, her pursuer dogging her some little distance behind. “Either his whole theory is incorrect,” I thought, “or else he will be led now to the heart of the mystery.” There was no need for him to ask me to wait up for him, for I felt that sleep was impossible until I heard the result of his adventure. It was close Upon nine when he set out. I had no idea how long he might be, but I sat stolidly puffing at my pipe and skipping over the pages of Henri Murgher’s “Vie de Boheme.” Ten o’clock passed, and I heard the footsteps of the maids as they pattered off to bed. Eleven, and the more stately tread of the landlady passed by my door, bound for the same destination, It was close upon twelve before I heard the sharp sound of his latch-key. The instant he entered I saw by.his face that he had not been successful. Amusement and chagrin seemed to be struggling for the mastery, until the former suddenly carried the day, and he burst into a hearty laugh. “I wouldn’t have rhe Scotland Yarders know it for the world,” he cried, dropping into his chair; “I have chaffed them so much that they would never let me hear the end of it. I can afford to laugh, because I know that I will be even with them in the long run.” “What is it, then?” “Oh, I don’t mind telling a story against myself. That creature had gone a little way when she began to limp and show every sign of being foot-sore. Presently she came to a halt, and hailed a fourwheeler which was passing. I managed tcTbe close to her so as to hear the address, but I need not have been so anxious, for she sung it out loud enough to be heard at the other side of the street, ‘Drive to 13 Duncan street, Houndsditch,’ she cried. This begins to look genuine, I thought, ancj having s&en her safely inside, I perched myself behind. That’s an art which every detective should be an expert at. Well, away we rattled, and never drew rein until we reached the street in question. I hopped off before we came to the door, and strolled down in uneasy, lounging way. 1 saw the cab pull up. The driver jumped down and I saw him open the door and stand expectantly. Nothing came out. though. When I reached him he was groping about frantically in the empty cab, and giving vent to the finest assorted collection of oaths that ever I listened to. There was no sign or trace of his. passen-

ger, and I fear it will be some time before he gets his fare. On inquiring at No. 13 I found that the house belonged to a respectable paperhanger, named Kes'wick, and that no one of the name either of Sawyer or Den dis had ever been heard of there.” \ “You don't mean to say,” I cried, in amazement, “that that tottering, feebl e old woman was abl e to get out of the cab while it was in motion, without either you or the driver seeing her?” “Old woman be d d!” said Sherlock Holmes, sharply. “We were the old women to be so taken in. It must have been a young man, and an active one, too, besides being an incomparable actor. The get-up was inimitable. He saw that he was followed, mo doubt, and used this means of giving me the slip. It shows that the man we are after is not as lonely as I imagined he was, but has friends who are ready to risk something for him. Now, doctor, you are looking done up. Take my advice and turn in.” I was certainly feeling very weary, so I obeyed his injunction. I let| Holmes seated in front of the smob dering fire, and long into the watches of the night I heard the low, melancholy wailings of his violin, and knew that he still pondering over the strange problem which he had set himself to unravel. CHAPTER VI. TOBIAS GREGSON SHOWS WHAT HI CAN DO. The papers next day were full of the “Brixton Mystery” as they termed it. Each had a long account of the affair, and some had leaders upon it in addition. There was some information in them which was new to me. I still retain in my scrap book numerous clippings and extracts bearing upon the case. Here is a condensation of a few of them: The “Daily Telegranh” remarked that in the history of crime there had seldom been a tragedy which presented stranger features. The Ge rman name of the victim, th e absence of all other motive, and the sinister inscription on the wall, all pointed to its perpetration by political refugees and revolutionists. The Socialists had many branches in America, and the deceased had, no doubt, infringed their unwritten laws and been tracked down by them. After alluding airily to the Vehmgericht, aqua tofana, Carbonari, the Marchioness de Brinvilliers, the Darwinian theory, the principles of Malthus, and the Ratcliff highway murders, the article concluded by admonishing the government and advocating a closer watch over foreigners in England. (to be continued. )

THE RETIRED BURGLAR.

His Fondness for Little Children Gets Him Into Trouble. New York Sun. “I always was fond of little children,” said the retired burglar, “and once Iserveda term on that account. I had gone into a house in the western part of the State and rummaged about down stairs, and finally got up and got into a room where there was a man and his wife and a baby, all asleep. The baby was in a cradle that stood at the foot of the bed; not far from the cradle, standing against the wall, was the. bureau. I transferred whatever there was of value in the bureau, and then I turned to the baby; I- couldn’t help it, I turned my light; on the kid to look at him, and it woke him up. He stared at me a little and then he began to smile and double up his fists at me. “Well, he looked so funny that I chucked him under the chin, and that seemed to tickle him immense; he threw up his legs and arms, and laughed more’n ever, and tried to say something; all he could say was ‘Goo —o—o,’0 —o,’ but that was enough. You’ve heard of womjeu so tired that you couldn’t wake ’em up firing a cannon in the next room, that would wake up in a minute if the baby turned in its cradle. Well, when, this baby said ‘Goo —o —o’ its* mother not only woke up instantly but she began to get up before she was fairly awake; and all the time she was looking toward the cradle, and she saw the light long before 1 could douse it. Then she screamed and I made a great break for the d00r... “But the man got there before I did; and, besides being very quick, he was very able-bodied and not the least bit afraid; in fact, he was a better man than I was, and the upshot of this business was that I got four years and six months just for stopping to chuck a little shaver under the chin,"

The only American in the Chinese navy commands the Chen-Yuen, its finest slop. He is Philo N. McGiffin, neither renegade nor adventurer. He entered the Chinese service because when he was graduated from Annapolis, in 1882, there was no vacancy for him in ours. In a letter "home describing his condition on board ship he says that in preparation for action his ship has left all its boats behind, and ho adds, showing the ferocity and determination of the combatants in the war now on: “We will not need them. If T’e are sunk the Japs will give us no quarter, and we shall give them none, either.” Nearly all the monarchs in Europe have their lives insured. The most notable exception is the Russian Emperor. The companies would not insure him, regarding his chances of long life as being extremely hazardous.

A SEASICK CYCLER.

A Novel Voyage and Its Failure. Harper’s Young People. George Pinkert’s water tricycle is the most remarkable development of the velocipede idea that has yet come before the public. The inventor is a citizen of Hamburg, Germany, and he probably drew his inspiration from the desire to navigate the North Sea that fills the breast of all good Hamburgers. It is possible to run the thing on land, but it is not much fun. The two principal wheels are four and one-half feet in diameter, and nearly twenty inches thick. They are made of sheet iron and divided into three air-tight compartments, so arranged that if any one of them springs a leak the other two will keep the machine afloat. On the outside of the drivingwheels are fastened sets of paddles four inches wide and eight inches long. Mr. Pinkert steers with the small wheel of the tricycle, which is less than three feet in diameter, and has no paddles. Rubber tires on all the wheels fit the machine for land travel, but it is very heavy, and the best speed the inventor claims for it on a good road is nine and a one-half miles an hour. On the river, he says, he can make seven miles an hour, or a little better than that with a good current. On the sea Mr. Pinkert hoped to advance at the rate of a mile in fifteen minutes—but alas! he forgot to reckon on the interference of seasickness with the most ambitious plans. Everything went well during the trial trips -Mr. Pinkert made on Swiss lakes and the rivers of northern Germany. He was his own marine engine, and his side-wheel craft splashed along nobly. Ambition seized on Mr. Pinkert. If Webb had swum the English channel, and the Oxford crew had rowed across, why shouldn’t he traverse it with rushing fore-wheel and roaring drivers?

So, putting on his best uniform, and carefully strapping on board a good supply of water and provisions, the sea-going ’cycler forth from Calais one July morning. Very little breeze was blowing, but that came, from the southeast, so there was plenty of fog, and no prospect of clear weather. A sailor would have hesitated before embarking under such conditions, especially on such a tricky strait as the English channel; but Mr. Pinkert was no sailor, and, besides, he was, as I have said, full of ambition. He launched his wheel —or wheels —and with very little effort paddled along the shore of Calais. A big crowd watched him.-’ After half an hour’s steady wheeling he was s wallowed up in the fog headed straight for Dover. Then a storm came up and blew him far from his course. When the wind quit playing with him he was in the North sea, but he did not know it, poor fellow, and kept paddling steadily forward. The waves rolled the bulky tricycle into all sorts of awkward positions, and came near capsizing it. Mr. Pinkert had that awful feeling —pains across, and loss of appetite, and general woe. A fishing smack picked him up and landed him at him at Boulogne. Not a bit disheartened, he tried the channel: trip again. Once more seasickness overcame him. He is going to keep on trying until he succeeds.

He Bit.

Harper’s Magazine. The old doctor and the old captain were fast friends, both inveterate jokers, and both, despite their aggregate six-score years, rabid sportsmen. The doctor’s frightful stammer did not seem to impede the flow of a joke, nor did the captain’s equatorial girth lessen his agility. One afternoon the old men set out on a rabbit hunt. As they passed through an orchard something scurried into a burrow. “Ar-r—wist—rabbit!" shouted the doctor. “L I —let’s p—pull him out.” And kneeling at the’hole he thrust his arm in up to the shoulder. “S-s —say,”Mie remarked, after a “sc-c —wist — can’t q-quite get him. Y-y—wh—-you try it, John; y-y —wh —your arm’s l-longer than m-m—wist — mine.” The captain knelt and thrust his arm down. In an instant he was executing awar dance around a tree, waving a bloody finger. “Blankety—blank—blank! That’s no rabbit; it’s aground hog.” “D—d—wist—did he bite you, J-J-John?” queried the doctor, anxiously. “Bite? Blankety—blank! Don’t you see he took off the whole end of my little finger.” “Wh —wh —wh—why, that’s t-too b-bad,” said the doctor, taking his own hand from behind him and showing a sadly lacerated thumb. “H-he b-b—wist —bit me, too!"

Literary Notes.

There has been a very interesting discussion caused of late by a serial article being published in Harper’s Young People. The article referred to*is called “A Trip Around Cape Horn in ’49,” and it tells anecdotes of the journey of an actual ship called the Gray Eagle around the Hoyn. The discussion is caused by letters frbm several persons who made the trip in the Gray Eagle,and they have all furnished Imany additional anecdotes of the voyage. The fourth installment of the account is in the present issue of the Young People. • Although means of travel have been greatly cheapened and improved in recent years, many per-

softs still prefer to have their traveling done for them as they sit about the hom entires ide with acopy of Harper’s Magazine. This year readers have enjoyed, or will enjoy, Richard Harding Davis’s descriptions of English and Paris life; Alfred Parson’s pictures of Japan; Edwin—Lord Weeks’s papers on India, and Poultney Bigelow’s experiences in Russia and Gerflaafty. -All these articles have been lavishly illustrated. The publishers announce for early numbers of the magazine descriptions of travel in Northern Africa, by Poultney Bigelow, with pictures by Frederic Remington; more illustrated papers on modern India, by Edwin Lord Weeks; and, by no means least, a series of illustrated stories of Chinese life, to be written by Julius Ralph, who has undertaken a special journey for that purpose. “An Intra-Mural View," a very artistic brochure, has been received from the Curtis Publishing Com£any, Philadelphia, publishers of the ladies’ Home Journal. As the title indicates, the book gives us glimpses of the interior of the Journal’s offices, and some idea of the work carried on there. The main building, entirely occupied by the editorial and business offices, was designed by Mr. Harden bergh, the architect of the Hotel Waldorf, New York, and was completed in January, , 1893. The exterior is attractive and the interior elegantly appointed and admirably planned. ;

PEOPLE.

Buckley, the blind Democratic politician, of San Francisco, who has had great ups and downs in the past, is in power there once more. Bishop Henry C. Potter, who has just returned from Europe, thinks that a tour abroad is the best cure for what is called the “big head.” Mr. Mancherjee Mcrwanjee Bhownuggee, the Parsee who is about to ' seek parliamentary honors of an ■ English constituency as a Unionist, is well known in London. A Western bishop of the Episcopal church says that the success of the church’s missionary operations in the far West is largely due to the munificence of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, the youngest son of Charles Dickens, has been living in Australia for more than twenty-five years, and is a member of Parliament from Wilcannia, New South Wales. Governor-Elect Woodbury and Lieutenant Governer-Elect Mansur, of Vermont, have each an empty sleeve —the right sleeve. Each man left his arm in Virginia some thirty years ago. The Rev. Father Peter Havermans, of Troy, N. Y., has been a priest for sixty-one years, and for fifty-one years has been pastor of St. Mary’s church in that city, which he built and in which he still celebrates mass every Sunday. Since he first went to Troy, in 1841, he has taken an honorable and conspicuous part in the civic and social life of the city, and today it contains no citizen more revered and esteemed.

Bishop William Carpenter, ol Ripon, England, is the court preacher. A story is told of him that when he was asked how he managed to address so exalted a person as the sovereign, and yet maintain his composure, he replied that he never addressed her at all. He knew there would be present the Queen, the Princes, the household, •the servants, down to the scullery maid. “And,” said the Bishop, “I preach to the scullery maid and the Queen understands me." Archbishop Ireland is hailed by the eloquent ex-priest, Hyacinthe Loyson, at Paris, as “the initiatorol the urgently needed reformation ol the. Roman Catholic church,” and as “the representative of the new spirit which is to place it in accord with modern life and thought." It remains to be seen whether approbation coming from such a source is likely to be of service to the populai American prelate at the Vatican, where Loyson is in exceptionally bad odor, being regarded as an apostate

Next to Ham.

Chicago Tribune. They are telling a pretty good story of a tourist who ventured beyond Deadwood. He was determined to see all there was that could be called wild and woolly, and immediately demanded to know where he could ride on a real stage coach. The Deadwood stage coaches of dime novel fame are rotting, unused and unhonored, on the sides of the hills, but a stage line still runs between Deadwood and Spearfish. Perched beside the driver of this stage, the tourist was delighted’ to find thal this man had really driven a coach ip the good old days. All efforts tc draw out some story, or even a sage remark which could be carefully treasured and repeated, were failures. They were bowling along the side of a creek, and the tourist finally said: “I hear you’ve got fine trout in these streams.” No response. “Isn’t there trout in this stream?” “Umph!” [ > “Fine fish, sir.” No response. _ “Don’t you like trout?” asked the traveler in desperation, turning in his seat in a way that demanded an answer. “Next to ham,” was the surly response. The astonished tourist was delighted with the result of his efforts when he finally figured out that ham was once a luxury and trout an every-day diet in that country.