The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes

traitor.'

The hedgerows flashed past; bit and harness jingled; we flew with the wind.

'You may recall,' pursued Holmes, 'the man's con­summate hypocrisy when his master smashed the first clock? It was a heavy look of embarrassment and shame, was it not? He would have you think Mr. Charles Hendon insane. How came you to know of the other five clocks, which were purely imaginary? Because Trepoff told you. To hide a clock or a live bomb in a cupboard would really have been madness, if in fact the Grand Duke Alexei had ever done so.'

'But, Holmes,' I protested. 'Since Trepoff is his per­sonal servant—'

'Faster, coachman! Faster! Yes, Watson!'

'Surely Trepoff must have had a hundred opportunities to kill his master, by knife or poison perhaps, without this spectacular addition of a bomb?'

'This spectacular addition, as you call it, is the revolu­tionaries' stock-in-trade. They will not act without it. Their victim must be blown up in one fiery crash of ruin, else the world may not notice them or their power.'

'But the letter to Sir Charles Warren?' cried Lady Mayo.

'Doubtless it was dropped down the nearest street drain. Ha! I think that must be Groxton Low Hall just ahead.'

The ensuing events of that night are somewhat con­fused in my mind. I recall a long, low-built Jacobean house, of mellow red brick with mullioned windows and a flat roof, which seemed to rush at us up a gravel drive. Carriage-rugs flew wide. Lady Mayo, thoroughly roused, called sharp instructions to a group of nervous servants.

Then Holmes and I were hurrying after Miss Forsythe up a series of staircases, from a broad and carpeted oak stairway in the hall to a set of narrow steps which were little more than a ladder to the roof. At the foot of these, Holmes paused for a moment to lay his fingers on Miss Forsythe's arm.

'You will stay here,' he said quietly.

There was a metallic click as he put his hand into his pocket, and for the first time I knew that Holmes was armed too.

'Come, Watson,' said he.

I followed him up the narrow steps while he softly lifted the trap-door to the roof.

'Not a sound, on your life!' he whispered. 'Fire if you catch sight of him.'

'But how are we to find him?'

The cold air again blew in our faces. We crept cau­tiously forward across the flat roof. All about us were chimneys, tall ghostly stacks and clusters of squat smoke-blackened pots, surrounding a great leaden cupola shining like silver under the moon. At the far end, where the roof-tree of an old gable rose against the sky, a dark shape seemed to crouch above a single moon-washed chimney.

A sulphur-match flared blue, then burned with a cedar yellow glow and, an instant later, came the hissing of an ignited fuse followed by a clattering sound in the chimney. Holmes ran forward, twisting and turning through the maze of stacks and parapets, toward the hunched figure now hastily clawing away.

'Fire, Watson! Fire!'

Our pistols rang out together. I saw Trepoff's pale face jerk round toward us, and then in the same instant the whole chimney-stack rose straight up into the air in a solid pillar of white fire. The roof heaved beneath my feet, and I was dimly conscious of rolling over and over along the leads, while shards and splinters of broken brickwork whizzed overhead or clanged against the metal dome of the cupola.

Holmes rose unsteadily to his feet. 'Are you hurt, Watson?' he gasped.

'Only a trifle winded,' I replied. 'But it was fortunate we were thrown on our faces. Otherwise—' I gestured toward the slashed and scarred stacks that rose about us.

We had advanced only a few yards through a mist of gritty dust when we came upon the man whom we were seeking.

'He must now answer to a greater tribunal,' said Holmes, looking down at the dreadful object sprawled on the leads. 'Our shots made him hesitate for that fatal second, and he took the full blast of the bomb up the chimney.' My friend turned away. 'Come,' he added, and his voice was bitter with self-reproach. 'We have been both too slow to save our client, and too late to avenge him through the machinery of human justice.'

Suddenly his expression altered, and he clutched my arm.

'By Jove, Watson! A single chimney-stack saved our lives!' he cried. 'What was the word the woman used! Hooded!  That was it, hooded!  Quickly; there's not a moment to lose!'

We raced through the trap-door, and down the stair­way to the main landing. At the far end, through a haze of acrid smoke, we could discern the ruins of a splintered door. An instant later we had rushed into the bedroom of the Grand Duke. Holmes groaned aloud at the scene which met our eyes.

What was once a stately fireplace now yawned in a great jagged hole beneath the remnants of a heavy stone hood. The fire from the grate had been blasted into the room, and the air was foul with the stench of the carpet smouldering under its powder of red-hot ashes. Holmes darted forward through the smoke, and a moment later I saw him stoop behind the wreckage of a piano.

'Quick, Watson!' he cried. 'There is life in him yet! This is where I can do nothing, and you can do everything.'

But it was touch and go. For the remainder of the night the young Duke hovered between life and death in the old wainscotted bedroom to which we had carried him. Yet, as the sun rose above the trees in the park, I noted with satisfaction that the coma induced by shock was already passing into a natural sleep.

'His wounds are superficial,' I said. 'But the shock alone could have proved fatal. Now that he is asleep, he will live, and I have no doubt that the presence of Miss Celia Forsythe will speed his recovery.'

'Should you record the facts of this little case,' re­marked Holmes a few minutes later, as we strolled across the dew-laden grass of the deer-park, all glittering and sparkling in the fresh beauty of the dawn, 'then you must have the honesty to lay the credit where it is due.'

'But does not the credit lie with you?'

'No, Watson. That the outcome was successful is owing entirely to the fact that our ancestors understood the art of building. The strength of a fireplace-hood two hundred years old saved that young man's head from being blown off his shoulders. It is fortunate for the Grand Duke Alexei of Russia, and for the reputation of Mr. Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street, that in the days of the good King James the householder never failed to allow for the violent predilections of his neighbour.'

----:----

From time to time I heard some vague ac­count of his doings: of his summons to Odessa in the case of the Trepoff murder.

FROM 'A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA.'

2

The Adventure of the Gold Hunter

'Mr. Holmes, it was death by the visitation of God!'

We have heard many singular statements in our rooms at Baker Street, but few more startling than this pronouncement of the Rev. Mr. James Appley.

I need no reference to my note-book to recall that it was a fine summer day in the year 1887. A telegram had arrived at the breakfast-table. Mr. Sherlock Holmes, with an exclamation of impatience, threw it across to me. The telegram stated merely that the Rev. James Appley re­quested the favour of waiting upon him that morning, to consult him in a matter of church affairs.

'Really, Watson,' Holmes had commented with some asperity, as he lighted his after-breakfast pipe, 'matters have indeed come to a pretty pass when clergymen seek my advice as to the length of their sermons or the conduct of the Harvest Festival. I am flattered but out of my depth. What does Crockford say of this strange client?'

Endeavouring to anticipate my friend's methods, I had already taken down the clerical directory. I could find only that the gentleman in question was the vicar of a small parish in Somerset, and had written a monograph on Byzantine medicine.

'An unusual pursuit for a country clergyman,' Holmes remarked. 'But here, unless I am much mistaken, is