The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes

that an innocent man is not called upon to pay the penalty for your own misdeeds.'

For a moment the giant stood as though turned to stone and then, with the roar of a wild beast, he hurled himself on Holmes. I managed to sieze him round the waist and Holmes's hands were buried deep in that bristling tangle of beard, but it would have gone hard with us had not Lestrade clapped a pistol to the man's head. At the touch of the cold steel against his temples, he ceased to struggle and a moment later Holmes had snapped a pair of handcuffs upon his great knotted wrists.

From the glare in his eyes I thought that Greerly was about to attack us again, but suddenly he gave a rueful laugh and turned his bearded face towards my friend.

'I don't know who you are, mister,' he said, 'but it's a fair catch. So, if you'll tell me how you did it, I'll answer all your questions.'

Lestrade stepped forward. 'I must warn you—' he began, with the magnanimous fair play of British justice.

But our prisoner waved his words aside.

'Aye, I killed him,' he growled. 'I killed Bully Addleton and now that it has come I reckon that I'll swing with an easy heart. Is that plain enough for you? Well, come inside.'

He led the way into the little office and threw himself into his chair while the rest of us accommodated ourselves as best we might.

'How did you find me, mister?' he demanded careless­ly, raising his manacled hands to bite off a fresh cud of tobacco.

'Fortunately for an innocent man, I discerned certain traces of your presence,' said Holmes in his sternest manner. 'I admit that I believed Mr. Percy Longton to be guilty when first I was asked to look into the matter nor did I perceive any reason to alter my views when I reached the scene of the crime. It was not long, however, before I found myself faced with certain details which, though insignificant enough in themselves, threw a new and curious light on the whole affair. The frightful blow that killed Squire Addleton had spattered blood over the fireplace and even a part of the wall. Why, then, were there no stains down the front of the dressing-gown worn by the man who struck that blow? Here was something inconclusive and yet troublesome.

'Next, I observed that there was no chair in the vicinity of the fireplace where the murdered man had fallen. He had, therefore, been struck down when standing, not sitting, and yet as the blow cleft the top of his skull it had been delivered from the same level, if not from above. When I learned from Mrs. Longton that the squire was over six feet tall, I was left with no doubt whatever that a serious miscarriage of justice had been committed. But, if not Longton, then who was the real murderer?

'My enquiries brought to light that a letter had reached the squire that morning, that apparently he had burned it, and thereafter quarrelled with his nephew by propos­ing the sale of a farm. Squire Addleton was a wealthy man. Why, then, these periodic sales which had first commenced two years previously? The man was being heavily blackmailed.'

'A lie, by God!' interrupted Greerly fiercely. 'He was paying back what didn't belong to him, and that's the truth.'

'On examining the room,' my friend continued. 'I found the faint traces of a boot-mark to which I drew your attention, Lestrade, and as the weather was dry I knew, of course, that the mark had been made after the crime. The man's boot was moist because he had stepped in the blood. My lens disclosed traces of some fine powder adhering to this boot-mark and on closer examination I recognized this powder to be pine sawdust. When I found, pressed into the dried earth in the hoofs of the squire's horse, a quantity of similar sawdust, I was able to form a fairly clear picture of the events which had occurred on the night of the crime.

'The squire, who had been subjected to the vehement protests of his nephew over the proposed sale of some valuable land, instantly mounted his horse after dinner and rode off into the darkness. Obviously, he intended to speak, perhaps appeal, to someone, and about mid­night that someone comes. He is a man of lofty stature and of a strength sufficiently formidable to cleave a human skull in a single blow, and the soles of his boots are engrained with pine-dust. There is a quarrel between the two men, perhaps a refusal to pay, a threat and, in an instant, the taller man has torn a weapon from the wall and, burying it in his opponent's skull, rushes out into the night.

'Where, I asked myself, might one expect to find the ground impregnated with wood-dust? Surely in a saw­ mill; and there down in the valley below the manor-house lay the Ashdown Timber Mills.

'It had occurred to me already that the clue to this terrible event might lie in the squire's earlier life, and therefore, following my usual practice, I spent an instruc­tive evening gossiping with our landlord in course of which I elicited by an idle question that two years ago an Australian had been given the post of Manager at the Ashdown Timber Mills on the personal recommenda­tion of Squire Addleton. When you came out of this hut early this morning, Greerly, to give your orders for the day's work, I was behind that timber shack. I saw you, and my case was complete.'

The Australian, who had listened to Holmes's account with the closest attention, leaned back in Ms chair with a bitter smile.

'It's my bad luck they ever sent for you, mister,' he said brazenly. 'But I'm not the man to break a bargain, and so here's the little that you still need to know.

'It all began in the early seventies at the time of the great gold strike near Kalgoorlie. I had a younger brother who went into partnership with an Englishman whom we knew as Bully Addleton and, sure enough, they struck it rich. At that time the tracks to the goldfields were none too safe, for there were bushrangers at work. Well, only a week after my brother and Addleton hit the vein, the gold-stage to Kalgoorlie was held up and the guard and driver shot dead.

'On the false accusation of Bully Addleton and some trumped-up evidence, my unfortunate brother was seized and tried for the crime. The law was quick to act in those days and they hung him that night to the Bushranger's Tree. Addleton was left with the mine.

'I was away up the Blue Mountains, timber cutting, and two full years passed before I heard the truth of the matter from a digger who had it from a dying cook-boy who had been bribed to silence.

'Addleton had made his pile and gone back to the Old Country, and I hadn't the money to follow him. From that day I wandered from job to job, always saving and planning how to find my brother's murderer, aye mur­derer, may the devil roast him!

'It was nigh twenty years before I came alongside him and that one moment repaid all my waiting.

' 'Morning, Bully,' said I.

'His face went the colour of putty and the pipe dropped out of his mouth.

' 'Long Tom Greerly!' he gasped, and I thought the man was going to faint.

'Well, we had a talk and I made him get me this job. Then I began to bleed him bit by bit. No blackmail, mister, but restitution of a dead man's goods. Two days ago, I wrote to him again and that night he rode down here, cursing and swearing that I was driving him to ruin. I told him I'd give him until midnight to make his choice, pay or tell, and I'd call for his answer.

'He was waiting for me in the hall, mad with drink and fury, and swearing that I could go to the police or the devil for all he cared. Did I think that the word of a dirty Australian timber-jack would be accepted against that of the Lord of the Manor and Justice of the Peace? He was mad to have ever paid me a penny-piece.

' 'I'll serve you as thoroughly as I served your worth­less brother!' he yelled. It was that which did it. Some­ thing seemed to snap in my brain and, tearing down the nearest weapon from the wall, I buried it in his snarling, grinning head.

'For a moment I stood looking down at him. 'From me and Jim,' I whispered. Then I turned and ran into the night. That's my story, mister, and now I'd take it kindly if we can go before my men get back.'

Lestrade and his prisoner had reached the door when Holmes's voice halted them.

'I only wish to know,' he said, 'whether you are aware of the weapon with which you killed Squire Addleton?'

'I told you it was the nearest thing on the wall, some old axe or club.'

'It was an executioner's axe,' said Holmes drily. The Australian made no reply,  but as he followed Lestrade to the door it seemed to me that a singular smile lit up his rough, bearded face.

My friend and I walked back slowly through the woods and up the moor where Lestrade and the prisoner had already vanished in the direction of Foulkes Rath. Sher­lock Holmes was moody and thoughtful and it was apparent