Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 December 1894 — N STUDY IN SCARLET. [ARTICLE]

N STUDY IN SCARLET.

BY A. CONAN DOYLE.

PART II . {Being a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M. D . late of the Army Mediea Depart ment.] CHAPTER VI-CoNTiNCtD.

“I have little more to say, and it’s , as well fori am about done up. I weti t oh cabbing it for a TTay dr sb/ intending to keep at it until I could save enough to take me back to America. I was standingin the yard when a ragged youngster asked if . there was a cabby there called Jefferson H >pe, and he said that his cab was wanted by a gentleman at 221 b Baker street. I went round, suspecting no harm, and the next thing I knew this young man here had the bracelets on my wrists and as neatly shackled as ever I was in my life, that’s the whole of my story, gentlemen. You may consider me to be a murderer, but I hold that lam just as much an officer of justice as you are.” So thrilling ha J the man’s narrative - been, ahd- his tn an tie r was so . impressive, that we had sat silent and absorbed. Even the professional detectives, blase as they were in every detail ofcrime, appeared to be kqeniy interested in the man’s story. When he finished we sat for some minutes in a stillness which was only broken by the scratching of Lestrade’s pencil as he gave the finishing touches to his short hand account. “There is only one point on which I should like a little more information,” Sherlock Holmes said at' last. “Who was your accomplice who came for the ring which I advertised?” The prisoner winked at my friend jocosely. “I can tell my own secrets,” he said, “but I don’t get other people into trouble. I saw your advertisement and I thought it might be a plant or it might be the ring I wanted. My friend volunteered to go and see. I think you’ll own he did it smartly.” “Not a doubt of that,” said Holmes, heartily. “Now, gentlemen,” the inspector remarked, gravely, “the forms of the law must be complied with. On Thursday;tbe prisoner willbe brought before the magistrates and your attendance will be required. Until thenl will be responsiblerfor him,” He rang the bell as he spoke and Jefferson Hope was led off by a couple of wardors, while my friend and I made our way out of the station and took a cab back to Baker street,

reasoning—backward, or analytically.” “iMinderstand.” satiTTr - “Now, this was a case in which you were given the result and had to find everything else for yourself. Now, let me endeavor to show you the different steps in my reasoning. To-begin at the beginning. I approached the house, as you know, on foot, and with my mind entirely free from all impressiont. I naturally began by examining the roadway, and there, as I have already explained to you, I saw clearly the marks of a cab,. which,l ascertained by inquiry, must have been there during the night, I satisfied myself that it was a cab, and not a private carriage, by the narrow gauge of the wheels. The ordinary London growler4s considerably-less wide than a gentleman’s brougam. “This was the first point gained. I then walked slowly down the garden path, which, happened to be composed of a clay soil peculiarly suitable for taking impressions. No doubt it appeared to you to be a mere trampled line of slush, but to my trained eyes every mark upon its surface had a meaning. There is no branch of dtftective science Which is so important and so much neglected al the art of-tracing footsteps. Happuy, I have always laid great Stress upon it, and much practice has made it second nature to me. I saw the heavy foot-marks of the constables, but I saw also the tracks of the-twb men who had first entered the garden. It was easy to tell that they had been before the others, because in places their marks had been entirely obliterated by the others coming upon the top of them. In this way my second link was formed, which told me that the nocturnal visitors were two in number, one remarkable for his height (as I calculated from the length of his stride) and’the other fashionably dressed, to judge from the small and elegant impression left by his boots. “On entering the house this last inference was confirmed. My wellbooted man lay before me. The tall one, then, had done the murder, if murder there was. There was no wound upon the dead man’s person; but the agitated expression upon his face assured me that he had foreseen his fate before it came upon him. Men who die from heart disease or any sudden natural cause never by any chance exhibit agitation upon their features. Having sniffed the dead man’s lips I detected a slightly sour smell, and I came to the conclusion that he had had poison forced upon him. Again, I argued that it had been forced upon him from the hatred and fear expressed upon his face. By the method of exclusion I ' had arrived at this result, because no other hypothesis would meet the facts. Do not imagine that it was a very unheard-of idea. The forcible administration of poison is by no means a new thing in criminal annals. The cases of Dolsky, in Odessa, and of Leturier, in Montpellier, will occur at once to any toxicologist.

CHAPTER VII. THE CONCLUSION. We had all been warned to appear before the magistrates upon the Thursday: but when the Thursday i came there was no occasion for our testimony. A higher Judge had taken the matter in hand, and Jes- ■ terson Hope had been summoned before a tribunal where strict justice I would be meted out to him. On the ■ very night after his capture the aneurism burst, and he was found in the morning stretched upon the floor of the cell, with a placid smile on his face, as though he bad been able in his dying moments to look back upon a useful life and on work well done. “Gregson and Lestrade will be wild about his death,” Holmes remarked, as we chatted it over next evening. ’‘Where will their grand advertisment be now?” “I don’t see that they had very much to do with his capture,” I answered. “What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence,” returned my companion, bitterly. “The question is, what cqnjyou make people believe that you have done? Never mind,” he continued,'■more brightly, after a pause, “I would not have missed the investigation for anything. There has been no better case within my recollection. Simple as it was, there were several most important points about it." “Simple!” I ejaculated.

“And now came the great question as to the reason why. Robbery had not been the object of the murder, for nothing was taken. Was it politics, then, or was it a woman? That was the question which confronted me. I was inclined from the first to the latter supposition. Political assassins are only too glad to do their work and to fly’. This murder had, on the contrary, been done most deliberately, and the perpetrator had left his tracks all over the room, showing that he had been there all the time.- It must have been a private wrong, and not a political one, which called for such a methodical revenge. When the inscription was discovered upon the wall I was more inclined than ever to my opinion. The thing was too evidently a blind. When the ring was found, however, it settled the question. Clearly the murderer had used it to remind his victim of some dead or absent woman. It was at this point that I asked Gregson whether he had inquired in his telegram to Cleveland as to any particular point in Mr. Drebber’s former career. He answered, you remember, in the negative. “I then proceeded to make a careful examination of the room, which confirmed me in my opinion as to the I murderer's height, and furnished me I with the additional detail as to the Trichinopoly qigar and the length of his nails. I had already come to the conclusion, since there were no signs of a struggle, that the blood which covered the floor had burst from the murderer’s nose in his excitement. I could perceive that the track of blood coincided with the track of his feet. It is seldom that any man, unless he is very full-blooded, breaks out in this way through emotion, so I hazarded the opinion that the cripiinal was probably a robust and ruddy-faced man. fcvents proved that I had judged correctly. “Having left the house, 1 proceeded to do what Gregson had neglected. I telegraphed to the head of the police at Cleveland, limiting my inquiry to the circumstances connected with the marriagb of Enoch Qrebber. The answer was conclu siye. It told me that Drebbe* had

“Well, really, it can hardly be de«cribed as otherwise," said Sherlock Holmes, smiling at my surprise. “The proof of its intrinsic simplicity is that without any help, save a few very ordinary deductions, I was able to lay my hand upon the criminal within three days.” “ I hat is true," said I. “I have already explained to you that what is out of the common is usually a guide rather than a hindrance. In solving a problem Of this •ort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backward. That is a very useful accomplishment and a very easy one, but people do not practice it much, in the every-day affairs of life it is <jnore useful to reason forward, and so the other comes to be neglected. There are fifty who can reason synthetically for onq, whocan reason anylytically." “I confess," said I, “that I do "not quite follow you.” “I hardly expected that you would. Let me see if I can make it clear. Most people, if you describe a train of events to them, will tell you what the result would be. They can put those events together in their minds, and argue from them that something will come to pass. There are few people, however, who, If you told them a result, would be able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led up to that result. This power is what I mean when I talk of

already applied for the protection o! the law against an old rival in love, named Jefferson Hope, and that this same Hope was at present in Europe. I knew now that I held the clue to the mystery in my hand, and all that remained was to secure the naur derer. ' • > ' “I had already determined in my own mind that the man who had walked into the house with Drebber was none other than the man who had driven the cab. The marks in the road showed me that the horse, i had wandered on it| a wiy which it would have bech impossible had th ere been anvone in charge-of it. Where, then, could the driver be, unless he were inside the house? Again, it is absurd to suppose that any sane man would carry out a deliberate crime under the very eyes, as it were, of a third person, who was sure to betray him. Lastly, supposing one man wished to dog another through London, what better means could he adopt than to turn cab driver? All these considerations led me to the irresistible conclusion that Jefferson Hope was to be found among the jarveysof the metropolis. “If he had been one there was no reason to believe that he had ceased to be. On the contrary, from his point of view, any sudden change would be likely to draw attention to himself. He would,-probably, for a time at least, continue to perform his duties. There was no reason to suppose that he was going under an assumed name. Why should he change his name in a country where no one knew his original one? I therefore organized my street-arab proprietor in London until they ferreted out the man that I wanted. How well they succeeded and how quickly I took advantage of it are still fresh in your-recollection. The murder of Stangerson was an incident which was entirely unexpected, but which could hardly in any case have been prevented. Through it, as you know; I came into noseession. of the pills, the existence of which I had already surmised. You see, the whole thing is a chain of logical sequences without a break or flaw.” “It is wonderful!” I cried: “Your merits should be publicly recognized. You should publish an account of the case, If you won’t, 1 will for you.” “You may dq what you like, doctor,” I answered. “See here!” he continued, handing a paper over to me; “look at this!” It was the “Echo” for the day,, and the paragraph to which hq pointed was devoted to the case in question. “The public,” it said, “have lost a sensational treat through the sudden death of the man Hope, who was suspected of the murder of Mr. Enoch Drebber add of Mr. Joseph Stangerson. The details of the case will probably never be known now. though we are informed upon good authority that the crime was the result of an oldstanding and romantic feud, in which love and Mormonism bore a part. It seems that both the victims belonged,in their younger days, to the Latter-Day Saints, and Hope, the deceased prisoner, hails also from Salt Lake City. If the case has had no other effect, it at least brings out in the most striking man-

ner the efficiency of our detective police force, and will serve as a lesson to all foreigners that they will do wisely to settle their feuds at home, and not to carry them on to British soil. It is an open secret, that the credit of this smart Capture belongs entirely to the well-known Scotland Yard officials, Messrs. Lestrade and Gregson. The man was apprehended, it appears, in the rooms of a certain Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who has himself, as an amateur, shown some talent in the detective line, and who, with such instructors, may hope in time to attain to some degreo of their skill. It is expected that a testimonial of some sort will be presented to the two of. ficers as a fitting recognition of their services.” “Didn’t I tell you so when wo started?” cried Sherlock Holmes, with a laugh. “Tnat’s the result ol all our Study in Scarlet; to get them a testimonial 1” “Never mind.” I answered; “I have all the facts in my journal, and the public shall know them. In the meantime, you must make yourself contented by the consciousness ot success, like the Roman miser: “ ‘Populus me slbilat, at mihi plaudo Ipse domi slmul ac nummos contempler in area.’ ” THE END.